The Blue Hotel (Tale Blazers) [Paperback]

Stephen Crane (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1980 | ISBN-10: 0895986884 | ISBN-13: 978-0895986887

Stephen Crane (1871-1900) was an American novelist, poet and journalist. He is best known for his novel Red Badge of Courage (1895). The novel introduced for most readers Crane's strikingly original prose, an intensely rendered mix of impressionism, naturalism and symbolism. He lived in New York City a bohemian life where he observed the poor in the Bowery slums as research for his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893), a milestone in uncompromising realism and in the early development of literary naturalism. He became shipwrecked in route to Cuba in early 1897, an experience which he later transformed into his short story masterpiece, The Open Boat (1898). Crane's poetry, which he called 'lines' rather than poems, was also strikingly new in its minimalist meter and rhyme. It employed symbolic imagery in order to communicate at times heavy-handed irony and paradox. Other works include Active Service (1899), The Monster (1899), The Blue Hotel (1899), Whilomville Stories (1900) and Wounds in the Rain (1900).

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Short story by Stephen Crane, published serially in Collier's Weekly (Nov. 26-Dec. 3, 1898), and then in the collection The Monster and Other Stories (1899). Combining symbolic imagery with naturalistic detail, it is an existential tale about human vanities and delusions. As the story opens, three visitors find shelter from a blizzard at Pat Scully's hotel in Fort Romper, Neb.: a nervous New Yorker known as the Swede, a rambunctious Westerner named Bill, and a reserved Easterner called Mr. Blanc. The Swede becomes increasingly drunk, defensive, and reckless. He beats Scully's son, Johnnie, in a fight after accusing him of cheating at cards. When the Swede accosts a patron of a bar, he is stabbed and killed. The story ends ambiguously at a point several months later, when timid Mr. Blanc confesses to Bill that he feels somewhat responsible for the Swede's death because he failed to act when he saw that Johnnie was indeed cheating at cards. -- The Merriam-Webster Encylopedia of Literature --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 75 pages
• Publisher: Perfection Learning (September 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895986884
• ISBN-13: 978-0895986887
• Product Dimensions: 4.8 x 7.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,601,598 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #58 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( C ) > Crane, Stephen

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