The Open Boat

Stephen Crane · 1897 CE · Short Story · Modern / American · Victorian

A cook, an oiler, a correspondent and an injured captain work a ten-foot dinghy off the Florida coast after their steamer goes down, close enough to see the beach and unable to reach it. Rowing in shifts through a night of grey water they become a brotherhood none of them names, and take turns resenting a universe prepared to drown them within sight of a lighthouse. Crane had spent thirty hours in that boat when the Commodore sank running guns to Cuba, and filed the newspaper version first.

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Attributes

Closest analogues

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