The Open Boat

The audio edition of Stephen Crane’s masterwork The Open Boat.


The Open Boat was based on Crane's experience of surviving a shipwreck off the coast of Florida earlier that year while traveling to Cuba to work as a newspaper correspondent. Crane was stranded at sea for thirty hours when his ship, the SS Commodore, sank after hitting a sandbar. He and three other men were forced to navigate their way to shore in a small boat; one of the men, an oiler named Billie Higgins, drowned after the boat overturned. Crane's personal account of the shipwreck and the men's survival, titled "Stephen Crane's Own Story", was first published a few days after his rescue.


LEARN ENGLISH AS YOU READ AND LISTEN TO THE SHORT STORIES BY ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS AMERICAN AUTHORS. ADAPTATIONS ARE WRITTEN AT THE INTERMEDIATE AND UPPER-BEGINNER LEVEL AND ARE READ ONE-THIRD SLOWER THAN REGULAR ENGLISH.