“ALTERED FOREVER THE COURSE OF AMERICAN FICTION”

CRANE, Stephen. Maggie, A Girl of the Streets. (Mount Vernon, New York): Limited Editions Club, 1974. Small folio, original half black morocco gilt, original slipcase. $250.

Signed limited edition of Crane’s first book, number 1503 of 2000 copies issued for members of the Limited Editions Club, signed by the artist, with frontispiece and five full-page black-and-white gravures from original etchings.

Stephen Crane's "first significant writing, Maggie, had all the qualities of his later work, but… when printed late in 1892 with $700 borrowed from a brother, it was piled in a room unsold" (DAB). As Shirley Grau notes in her Introduction to this limited edition, signed by the artist and printed especially for members of the Limited Editions Cub, Stephen Crane's Maggie "represented a new voice and a new direction in American fiction… [He] altered forever the course of American fiction." First printed in a virtually unobtainable1893 edition. See BAL 4075; Starrett 8.

A fine copy.