begin by saying that the story of this novel is as interesting as its contents. Written
in 1891, in just two days by the then twenty year old Stephen Crane (1871-1900), "Maggie" not had any luck publishing, so that the young writer and journalist was forced two years later in pubblicarselo alone, not even one thousand copies, then spending the considerable sum of $ 869.
The original title was "Maggie a girl of the street - a story of New York" , signed with the pseudonym Johnston Smith.
He managed to sell a few books (yes, two in number), I gave some to relatives and most of the remaining copies were used by the cleaning girl to light the fire. With the consent of the author, is clear.
Yet reading this short novel, rediscovered when Crane had some success in 1895 with "The Red Badge of Courage" , is an extraordinary experience, a testimony accurate, realistic and exciting life of one of the worst areas of the city.
The characters are portrayed in a harsh, almost cruel that the author is not romance but carving, chisel the story with dialogues thesis, modern even today that more than one hundred years. The story of Maggie
more than a story is a collection of photographs, a series of shots that sheds light on a character who appears hopeless right from the start.
Maggie, sewing collars and cuffs for a few cents, lives in the "tenements", knows or at least understands that there may be a better world of squalor that revolves around the ruling. Will try to change, and will do so to escape ending up in the arms of Pete, a little - very little - a good friend of his brother Jimmy.
"For her the world was made only of hardship and injuries. He tried once admiration for a man capable of challenging such a world. I think if the dark angel of death had gripped the hearts, Pete would have shrugged and would said "I put everything in place I" .
The shadows of New York's Bowery in the late nineteenth century and many were young and radiant beauty of Maggie will not be enough to lighten up, nothing will against the cruelty of the big and small neighborhood.
"He began to imagine another of his visits. Expenditure part of the wages to buy the cretonne to make a floral curtain. The fashioned with infinite care and hung it on the hood of the stove in the kitchen. He looked anxiously from different points the room. We held that he looks good, perhaps on Sunday evening when Jimmie's friend would come back. "
The New York Crane was entirely concentrated in those slums, where the carriers in a fist fight on the streets at the slightest provocation and the police never fails to bring out their batons. The only car worthy of respect is that of the firefighters, even they can turn off the alcohol fumes that stifle many of the protagonists.
We are parties de The Gang of New York and Life, but with the contemporary look of a brilliant mind, who knew how to dive not only metaphorically in those slums, capturing the soul and turning it into black literature, opening the way for a realistic style that will affect a lot of American fiction of the 900.
Maggie, A History of New York , Stephen Crane, Bookever, 2006
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