Stephen Crane

Portrays the brutal effects of the poverty and loneliness of slum life.

Maggie, a Girl of the Streets, and Other Tales of New York

Jeni Enjaian

As I say with most of my reviews of any book that falls into the "classics" category, I find it very difficult to review these books, many times because I do not understand how the works came to be classified as classics. In the case of this particular book, the latter reason does not apply. That being said, I have three fairly negative criticisms and just one positive to give for this book.
First the positive. Crane's narrative throughout all the various short stories is vivid and highly realistic. I could easily visualize the images Crane created on the page. Now for the negative. One, I am not a fan of writing dialect into the text. In many cases, especially that of American southern slaves, this dialect impedes the flow of the narrative because the reader is forced to slow the pace of their reading, sometimes stop altogether, to make out the meaning of the statements of various characters. Two, while Crane uses vivd imagery, he avoids giving the mundane details that root a narrative to a sensible framework. This causes some confusion for the reader because the narrative jumps from vivid image to vivid image without proper connection between the two. Three, short stories are not my favorite genre. This speaks nothing to Crane's talent as an author or strength of the stories themselves. It is simply personal taste.

I would recommend this book to those interested in reading the classics. Despite most of what i said above, this is one of the better classics I've read recently.

Maggie, a Girl of the Streets, and Other Tales of New York

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