Criticism > Short Story Criticism > The Open Boat, Stephen Crane - (review date 7 May 1898)

The Open Boat, Stephen Crane - (review date 7 May 1898)

(review date 7 May 1898)

SOURCE: Review of The Open Boat, by Stephen Crane. Literature 2 (7 May 1898): 535-36.

[In the following review, the anonymous critic surveys the strengths of Crane's short fiction through an analysis of “The Open Boat.”]

For the reader's information, we may say at once that this is a book to read, that is, if the reader does not expect too much from a writer who has been so unanimously praised as Mr. Crane. Nor do we dissent from the praise that has been bestowed upon him, although his admirers have been a little extravagant in their laudation. As far as we can judge—and Mr. Crane has not as yet written a great deal—his position in literature is in some ways peculiar. He has in a very unusual degree the power of bringing a scene, no matter what, before our eyes by a few graphic phrases. His subjects are not always interesting; it is his way of presenting them that is everything. In this respect he...

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