This book has important information, but I do not think it is worth the money. The letters are published in other places and Mr. Wertheim does not make useful cojmments to help understand the content.

This is the definitive edition of Crane's correspondence and almost doubles the number of known Crane letters since the Stallman and Gilkes edition appeared in 1960. The sectional introductions constitute a short Stephen Crane biography. The footnores are concise and informative.

Like all important university press books, this definitive edition of Crane's correspondence is expensive, but it almost doubles the number of known Crane letters since the 1960 edition edited by Stallman and Gilkes. The introductions to the various sections constitute a short and authoritative Crane biography. The footnotes are economical and to the point.

It seems to me that much of this material is made up by the author. I could not understand how private facts of Crane's life would be known in this way. I find this book very disturbing because of this. I think Crane is a great author but this book did not help me understand his work at all.

Stephen Crane wrote some great books and lead a fascinating life, but this day to day rehash of every trivial detail with none of the excitement of this great author's life is terrible! This book does a disservice to Crane and his memory...confusing, loooong, and boring.

The Crane Log is a wonderful book which I have been reading over the past few days. I am surprised by the many underserved poor reviews this book has gotten. It must be stressed that this is a reference work, and one that is probably best read in snatches, and not in chronological order. includes day by day accounts, including fascinating liberal excerpts from memoirs of the people who knew him that allows you to form your own conception of Crane as he lived. For the first time we have a biographical work of Crane that is free of the fictions of Crane's first biographer, Thomas Beer. That is not something to grouse about.

This is a good example of a terrible trend--the dumbing down of arts books by authors and publishers eager to hop on the pop culture bandwagon and not put much effort into it. The book has zero insights, some truly bad writing, and a modest amount of information. As to the previous reviewer who found it "refreshing" that the author didn't know what one of the films was about--well, this is holding an author to a pretty low standard (Kubrick only made about 13 movies in his life!) And as to the reviewer's statement that this "can and should be read at one sitting" I would suggest that it would be impossible to read this tiny and insubstantial book at More than one sitting.

If you have never seen a Stanley Kubrick film or were unaware of his complete body of work then this book would be of some use. Unfortunately it is far too lightweight to satisfy any serious film enthusiast's needs. This is all the more regrettalble as Mr Duncan is clearly a fan of Kubrick's work. He makes many glaring mistakes and seems to have taken rumour as fact when writing his analysis. It is a shame that a book that seems to have been rushed out following the director's death could not have had more time spent on it and been more considered.

I've seen some bad reviews of this book, and author Paul Duncan's book on Hitchcock, which I find surprising. These books also 'feel' different to other reference books. Normally you have the biography from the director's point of view, then the unauthorised biography with all the dirt, then a 'making of' book, and a book all about the subtext of the movies. Paul Duncan has fused all the types of book together to give both rounded and contradictory pictures of Kubrick and Hitchcock. He has also written it in an enthusiastic 'white heat' style which I find exciting to read. These books can, and should, be read in one sitting. In the case of the Kubrick book, Duncan obviously loves the films but still has the guts to point out that A Clockwork Orange is overrated whilst Barry Lyndon is underrated. Also, he admits to not understanding The Shining - in a world full of ego-centric experts and know-alls, it's refreshing to read something with this level of informality. 'Refreshing' - that's a good word for these books. I am going to look out for more of these Pocket Essentials.