The Blue Hotel and Other Stories

Stephen Crane

Washington Square Press, 1960 - Fiction - 359 pages

"The Blue Hotel" is a short story by American author Stephen Crane (1871-1900). The story first appeared in the 1899 collection entitled The Monster and Other Stories. It is perhaps the most widely read of all the tales in the collection and while it may seem, on the surface, to be a rather straightforward story about a man who gets in trouble after a stay at the Palace Hotel, there are several complex themes that drive the work and in some ways, define many of the overarching themes in novels like Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and more generally, of Crane's entire body of work. Stylistically, this work breaks away from the standards of the time, often delving into the realms of Expressionism, a style not readily found in the American literary Canon. This experimentation of form further augments the argument of his legacy amongst the literary giants of the American modernist movement.

Contents

• Introduction by Austin McC: 1
• The Men in the Storm: 66
• The Monster: 73

About the author

Stephen Crane authored novels, short stories, and poetry, but is best known for his realistic war fiction. Crane was a correspondent in the Greek-Turkish War and the Spanish American War, penning numerous articles, war reports and sketches. His most famous work, The Red Badge of Courage (1896), portrays the initial cowardice and later courage of a Union soldier in the Civil War. In addition to six novels, Crane wrote over a hundred short stories including "The Blue Hotel," "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," and "The Open Boat." His first book of poetry was The Black Riders (1895), ironic verse in free form. Crane wrote 136 poems. Crane was born November 1, 1871, in Newark, New Jersey. After briefly attending Lafayette College and Syracuse University, he became a freelance journalist in New York City. He published his first novel, Maggie: Girl of the Streets, at his own expense because publishers found it controversial: told with irony and sympathy, it is a story of the slum girl driven to prostitution and then suicide. Crane died June 5, 1900, at age 28 from tuberculosis.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Blue Hotel and Other Stories; Washington Square Press
• Author: Stephen Crane
• Publisher: Washington Square Press, 1960
• ISBN: 0671460366, 9780671460365
• Length: 359 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Literary