Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1896)

Summary

Henry Edward Rood. “Stephen Crane's ‘Maggie.’” New York Mail and Express, May 30, 1896, p. 18

Several years ago Stephen Crane wrote a story of slum life in New York and printed it himself in brown paper covers with the title “Maggie, a Girl of the Streets.” During the last six months he has rewritten the tale, and soon it will be published by Messrs. D. Appleton & Co., through whose courtesy advance sheets have been carefully examined. And the conviction is forced upon one that by writing “Maggie” Mr. Crane has made for himself a permanent place in literature. It matters not if he continues to grind out grotesque verse and slipshod short stories. These may injure him temporarily so far as money returns are concerned. But it is enough that he has written “Maggie”—one of the most powerful, terrible and hideous studies of the dregs of humanity that have been produced in the English language.

There will be discussion as to the advisability of writing for perusal by the general public such a book as “Maggie.” Some will say it is unfit for reading by decent people; others that its masterful presentation of existing barbarism in the chief of American cities will result in renewed effort to better the condition of those miserable, bestial creatures in human form who reside in certain portions of the East side.