Maggie

This definitive, annotated edition of Maggie is based on Crane's original 1893 text and provides instructors with everything they need to teach the work in its historical and cultural context. Over 175 pages of documents are organized into thematic units on late-nineteenth and turn of the century American society to give the reader a context for Maggie. The various chapters in this edition cover topics such as tenement life; shops, saloons, concert-halls; working women from the perspectives of others; working women tell their own stories; prostitution; realism; and slum fiction.

Booknews

Reprints Crane's original, unexpurgated 1893 text about perhaps the most memorable prostitute in American literature, presenting it in the context of 45 contemporary essays depicting the historical, cultural, and social milieu of late 19th century New York tenements, including discussion of: the role of alcohol, attitudes toward working women, and literary realism and reform movements. Contains a chronology of Crane's life and times and some period illustrations. No index. Distributed by St. Martin's Press. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

STEPHEN CRANE was born, in 1871, in Newark, New Jersey. He attempted college twice, the second time failing a theme-writing course while writing articles for newspapers such as the New York Tribune. In 1892 Crane moved to the poverty of New York City's Lower East Side--the Bowery so vividly depicted in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. Destitute and depressed after the initial failure of that book, Crane had almost decided to abandon writing and find a suitable trade when word came to him that William Dean Howells had read Maggie, and admired it, going so far as to compare Crane to Tolstoy.