MAGGIE : A CHILD OF THE STREETS.

London : William Heinemann, 1896. First British edition. His first book, "regarded as the first work of unalloyed naturalism in American fiction" (Milne Holton) and immediately inviting comparison in Europe with Hardy, Zola and Arthur Morrison's "Tales of Mean Streets". Originally published under a pseudonym at Crane's own expense in 1893, but not issued under his own name until after the success of "The Red Badge of Courage" on both sides of the Atlantic. The British edition has a telling introduction by William Dean Howells (1837-1920) - "the girl herself, with her bewildered wish to be right and good, with her distorted perspective, her clinging and generous affections, her hopeless environments ...". Foolscap 8vo (17cm). (viii),(148),4pp. Original decorative navy buckram gilt; top edge gilt; endpapers a little tanned; a touch shaken; a few minor marks and spots, but overall a very good copy. With the dated (October 1896) ownership inscription and armorial bookplate of Walter Wren (1833-1898), briefly a radical Member of Parliament and later a member of the first London County Council.