Book excerpt: "In considering the whole of Crane's writing, Monteiro interrelates the various texts and vividly presents their cultural contexts, structuring his study around the primary natural and social settings that uniquely characterize Crane - the city, warfare, the frontier, and shipwreck at sea. By taking an unprecedented inventory of those religious readings, songs, and recitations the young Crane imbibed and tracing their permeation of his writerly imagination, Monteiro deepens our understanding of the meaning and purpose of Crane's work and fosters new appreciation for his immense but short-lived creative faculty."--Jacket.