The Monster and Other Stories (Dover Thrift Editions: Short Stories)
The harrowing title tale from this collection recounts the experiences of an African-American coachman who becomes horribly disfigured after rescuing his employer's son from a fire. A study of race and tolerance as well as the challenges posed by deformity, this major work by the author of <I>The Red Badge of Courage</I> originally appeared in 1898. The last of Stephen Crane's work to be published in his lifetime, the story was rediscovered in the mid-twentieth century and acclaimed by Ralph Ellison as "one of the parents of the modern American novel."<BR>This volume also features two additional short stories by Crane: "The Blue Hotel," in which a nervous visitor is led astray by his own preconceptions about the Wild West, and "His New Mittens," the touching tale of a little boy who allows himself to be goaded into a snowball fight and attempts to outrun his mistake.<BR>