Maggie

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) is a novel by American writer Stephen Crane. Self-published by Crane when the author was only 22 years old, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets has since been recognized as the first work of American literary Naturalism. Inspired by his experience as a working reporter in Manhattan, Crane sought to explore the effects of poverty, alcoholism, and abuse on a character whose determination and moral goodness are entirely ill-suited for survival.

The story begins with Jimmie Johnson, a young boy whose family lives in squalor in Manhattan''s Bowery neighborhood. When he tries to fight a gang of older boys, Jimmie is saved by his best friend Pete, only to go home to parents who--in a drunken rage--frighten and abuse their three young children. The deaths of their father and young brother Tommie place an enormous burden Jimmie, who works as a teamster to support himself and his alcoholic mother. Although Maggie finds work as a seamstress an