Sullivan County Tales and Sketches

This collection will hold a special attraction to those interested in American literature, for it reveals the beginnings of Stephen Crane's development into what William Dean Howells called "a writer sprung to life fully armed." There is clear evidence here of Crane's painterly and impressionistic style and his addiction to color adjectives, metaphor, and symbol. Also seen are the seeds of themes which were soon to appear in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and The Red Badge of Courage, the former noted for its grotesqueries and the latter for its psychological probing of character.