Scarce ink signature, "Yours sincerely, Stephen Crane, Athens May 11, 1897,” on an off-white 6.5 x 4.75 sheet with an affixed portrait of the author. Archivally double-matted and framed to an overall size of 13.5. x 12. In fine condition, with scattered stray ink marks in the lower blank area.



An exceptionally early autograph from the 25-year-old scribe, dating to a month before he published the short story The Open Boat, a recounting of his own experience of surviving a shipwreck off the Floridian coast earlier that year while traveling to Cuba. Crane and three other men were stranded at sea for thirty hours when his ship, the SS Commodore, sank after hitting a sandbar. In April 1898, the story was published in an American volume entitled The Open Boat and Other Tales of Adventure, and in England as The Open Boat and Other Stories. Given his tragic death at the age of 28, all autograph material from Crane remains rare and highly sought.