A Number of the tales and sketches here brought together appear now for the first time between covers; others for the first time between covers in this country. All have been gathered from out-of-print volumes and old magazine files.

"The Open Boat," one of Stephen Crane's finest stories, is used with the courteous permission of Doubleday, Page & Co., holders of the copyright. Its companion masterpiece, "The Blue Hotel," because of copyright complications, has had to be omitted, greatly to the regret of the editor.

After the death of Stephen Crane, a haphazard and undiscriminating gathering of his earlier tales and sketches appeared in London under the misleading title, "Last Words." From this volume, now rarely met with, a number of characteristic minor works have been selected, and these will be new to Crane's American admirers; as follows: "The Reluctant Voyagers," "The End of the Battle," "The Upturned Face," "An Episode of War," "A Desertion," "Four Men in a Cave," "The Mesmeric Mountain," "London Impressions," "The Snake."

Three of our present collection, printed by arrangement, appeared in the London (1898) edition of "The Open Boat and Other Stories," published by William Heinemann, but did not occur in the American volume of that title. They are "An Experiment in Misery," "The Duel that was not Fought," and "The Pace of Youth."

For the rest, "A Dark Brown Dog," "A Tent in Agony," and "The Scotch Express," are here printed for the first time in a book.

For the general title of the present collection, the editor alone is responsible.

V. S.

MEN, WOMEN AND BOATS

CONTENTS

STEPHEN CRANE: _An Estimate_

THE OPEN BOAT

THE RELUCTANT VOYAGERS

THE END OF THE BATTLE

THE UPTURNED FACE

AN EPISODE OF WAR

AN EXPERIMENT IN MISERY

THE DUEL THAT WAS NOT FOUGHT

A DESERTION

THE DARK-BROWN DOG

THE PACE OF YOUTH

SULLIVAN COUNTY SKETCHES

A TENT IN AGONY

FOUR MEN IN A CAVE

THE MESMERIC MOUNTAIN

THE SNAKE

LONDON IMPRESSIONS

THE SCOTCH EXPRESS

STEPHEN CRANE: _AN ESTIMATE_

It hardly profits us to conjecture what Stephen Crane might have written about the World War had he lived. Certainly, he would have been in it, in one capacity or another. No man had a greater talent for war and personal adventure, nor a finer art in describing it. Few writers of recent times could so well describe the poetry of motion as manifested in the surge and flow of battle, or so well depict the isolated deed of heroism in its stark simplicity and terror.

To such an undertaking as Henri Barbusse's "Under Fire," that powerful, brutal book, Crane would have brought an analytical genius almost clairvoyant. He possessed an uncanny vision; a descriptive ability photographic in its clarity and its care for minutiae--yet unphotographic in that the big central thing often is omitted, to be felt rather than seen in the occult suggestion of detail. Crane would have seen and depicted the grisly horror of it all, as did Barbusse, but also he would have seen the glory and the ecstasy and the wonder of it, and over that his poetry would have been spread.