Stephen Crane Short Stories

[alleycat]

I recently purchased a "very good" copy of The Complete Short Stories and Sketches of Stephen Crane (Doubleday, 1963). Crane, best known for The Red Badge of Courage, is also considered a master of the short story.

I've read a few of Crane's short stories in the past and enjoyed them. Makes me wonder why I never bought a collection of his before. I have collections of many of the short story writers I admire.

Anyone else here like Crane's stories?

[MarkA9]

I read several Crane stories in college so many years ago, and I recall thoroughly enjoying "The Open Boat." Its opening sentence is a classic, I think. ("None of them knew the color of the sky...") Besides Red Badge, I also enjoyed Maggie, a Girl of the Streets.
I've always enjoyed that period of American literature.

[Jamesaritchie]

Love them. We read The Red Badge of Courage way back when I was in seventh grade, and I was hooked.

[alleycat]

Love them. We read The Red Badge of Courage way back when I was in seventh grade, and I was hooked.
I think I started reading it at about that age as well, but didn't finish it. I read it later.

I think Red Badge is one of those stories that almost everyone thinks they know (and probably do know the gist of it), so they don't bother to read it. Moby Dick might be similar in that regard, although I think some people who haven't read it think Moby Dick is all dark and gloomy. If they ever read the first couple of pages, then the book doesn't scare them away. I love that line that is something like: "When I start following funeral processions for people I don't know, and want to knock people's hats off, I know it's time to go to sea . . . " (that's not the actual line, of course; I'd have to look it up to get it right).

I was reading The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky yesterday; that was one I remembered from long ago.