The harrowing title tale from this collection recounts the experiences of an African-American coachman who becomes horribly disfigured after rescuing his employer's son from a fire. A study of race and tolerance as well as the challenges posed by deformity, this major work by the author of The Red Badge of Courage originally appeared in 1898. The last of Stephen Crane's work to be published in his lifetime, the story was rediscovered in the mid-twentieth century and acclaimed by Ralph Ellison as "one of the parents of the modern American novel."

This volume also features two additional short stories by Crane: "The Blue Hotel," in which a nervous visitor is led astray by his own preconceptions about the Wild West, and "His New Mittens," the touching tale of a little boy who allows himself to be goaded into a snowball fight and attempts to outrun his mistake.