Maggie by Crane, Stephen - 1896

William Heinemann, 1896. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. London, 1896. 12mo, publisher's blue cloth, 148 pp. First British edition. The first British edition, published three years after the very scarce 1893 edition and the same year as the first revised American edition published by Appleton. A very good plus copy, well preserved, with near fine contents. Some fading to cloth at spine, offsetting to front and rear free endpapers. "It offers a glaring representation of social conflict in a modern urban environment, ending with the death of Maggie, either as a suicide or as a murder victim, depending upon the textual reconstruction. William Dean Howells found in it the sense of tragic fate characteristic of ancient Greek tragedy. Maggie is the only 1890s slum novel that is still read because Crane portrayed graphically and colorfully the realities of big-city "lowlife," balancing compassion for the abused heroine with the detachment necessary for conscientious reporting." -ANB.