The Open Boat: Short Story
()
About this ebook
Following a shipwreck, four survivors are adrift in a leaking dinghy—The Open Boat. The captain is hurt but still able to lead, the cook keeps the boat afloat by bailing, and the correspondent and the oiler—a man whose job it is to oil machinery—take turns rowing. At first, angry at their situation and inclined to bicker, the men ultimately form bonds of empathy and, united, struggle to survive.
Based on author Stephen Crane’s own experience of shipwreck off the coast of Florida in 1897, “The Open Boat” is considered by many to be his greatest work and the model of literary Naturalism.
HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.
Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1871. He died in Germany on June 5, 1900.
Read more from Stephen Crane
The Classic American Short Story MEGAPACK ® (Volume 1): 34 of the Greatest Stories Ever Written Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Manhattan Noir 2: The Classics Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Monster Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great Short Works of Stephen Crane Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Blue Hotel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Open Boat Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Greatest American Short Stories: 50+ Classics of American Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Experiment in Misery: Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Blue Hotel: Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Civil War Memories: Nineteen Stories of Battle, Bravery, Love, and Tragedy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Greatest American Short Stories (Vol. 1) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Red Badge of Courage and Selected Short Fiction (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Short Stories – Best Books Boxed Set: 50+ Classics of American Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Military MEGAPACK®: 25 Great Tales of War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Little Regiment and Other Civil War Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Open Boat
Related ebooks
Cruise of the Snark Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hernando Cortez Makers of History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerica Moved: Booth Tarkington’s Memoirs of Time and Place, 1869–1928 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSamuel Pepys and the Strange Wrecking of the Gloucester: A True Restoration Tragedy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Son of the Middle Border Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAt The Mountains Of Madness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTo My Sons Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Amy Hollingsworth's The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Canterbury Tales (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Three Musketeers (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Adventures of Captain Hatteras Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Canoeing in the wilderness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Saga of Gosta Berling Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMark Twain: The Adventures of Samuel L. Clemens Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hunger (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Camping and Tramping with Roosevelt Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVoyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Life of Robert Louis Stevenson by Sir Graham Balfour (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPermanent Camp: Poems, Narratives and Renderings from the Smokies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Realm of Prester John Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hidden History of the Dark Corner Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Guardians of the Columbia Mount Hood, Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRobert Crews Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silverado Squatters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Paddling the Boreal Forest: Rediscovering A.P. Low Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHoward Who?: Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Magic Mountain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLafitte: the pirate of the Gulf Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSomething Else Again Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Short Stories For You
The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Skeleton Crew Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird: Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Stories of Ray Bradbury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jackal, Jackal: Tales of the Dark and Fantastic Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Five Tuesdays in Winter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lovecraft Country: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Years of the Best American Short Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sex and Erotic: Hard, hot and sexy Short-Stories for Adults Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ficciones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Warrior of the Light: A Manual Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Night Side of the River Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas: A Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Two Scorched Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Four Past Midnight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Living Girl on Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unfinished Tales Of Numenor And Middle-Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Explicit Content: Red Hot Stories of Hardcore Erotica Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Open Boat
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Open Boat - Stephen Crane
The Open Boat
A Tale Intended to be After the Fact. Being the Experience of Four Men from the Sunk Steamer Commodore.
I
None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and all of the men knew the colors of the sea. The horizon narrowed and widened, and dipped and rose, and at all times its edge was jagged with waves that seemed thrust up in points like rocks. Many a man ought to have a bathtub larger than the boat which here rode upon the sea. These waves were most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall, and each froth-top was a problem in small-boat navigation.
The cook squatted in the bottom and looked with both eyes at the six inches of gunwale which separated him from the ocean. His sleeves were rolled over his fat forearms, and the two flaps of his unbuttoned vest dangled as he bent to bail out the boat. Often he said: Gawd! That was a narrow clip.
As he remarked it he invariably gazed eastward over the broken sea.
The oiler, steering with one of the two oars in the boat, sometimes raised himself suddenly to keep clear of water that swirled in over the stern. It was a thin little oar and it seemed often ready to snap.
The correspondent, pulling at the other oar, watched the waves and wondered why he was there.
The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this time buried in that profound dejection and indifference which comes, temporarily at least, to even the bravest and most enduring when, willy-nilly, the firm fails, the army loses, the ship goes down. The mind of the master of a vessel is rooted deep in the timbers of her, though he commanded for a day or a decade, and this captain had on him the stern impression of a scene in the greys of dawn of seven turned faces, and later a stump of a topmast with a white ball on it that slashed to and fro at the waves, went low and lower, and down. Thereafter there was something strange in his voice. Although steady, it was, deep with mourning, and of a quality beyond oration or tears.
Keep ’er a little more south, Billie,
said he.
‘A little more south,’ sir,
said the oiler in the stern.
A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a bucking bronco, and by the same token, a bronco is not much smaller. The craft pranced and reared, and plunged like an animal. As each wave came, and she rose for it, she seemed like a horse making at a fence outrageously high. The manner of her scramble over