Stephen Crane's Lonely Hearts Club Band?

I hear "The Beatles: Rock Band" is coming out soon, and quite frankly i could care less. Video games like that aren't my thing. The interesting part is that the two surviving Beatles (McCartney, Starr) and the widows of George Harrison (Olivia) and John Lennon (Yoko) supposedly had so much input with this project. Which of course makes sense.

I felt guilty letting my mind wander to Beatles thoughts while pondering this video game, so i quickly searched for a Stephen Crane tangent to riff off on (that's cool guitarspeak, people). Believe it or not, Stephen Crane is on the cover of one of the greatest albums of all time, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band!

Check it out on this website, scroll down half way to see the album cover. Here is the detail, rather hard to see, but Crane is at center in this image, wedged between a guy's face and and hand.

Hmm, this forces the question: Who was consulted on Stephen Crane's behalf before he was included on one of the best selling albums of all time? While it's awesome the Beatles thought to include him, I've got to say, the pic of him is rather hard to see, mixed in there among 60 other figures. It would have been so much better had the cover of Sgt. Pepper featured just Stephen Crane...or ok, the Beatles and him.

What is nice is that he is placed directly above Paul McCartney's head. However, this is probably connected to that weird marketing ploy which spread the rumor that the real Paul died during the Beatles' rise and was replaced by a double. Don't know about you but i'm not too keen on Stephen Crane's partially obscured face being used as a false hint to something that never happened...or did it?

But i suppose i can overlook all this and get really grooved out that Crane is on the Sgt. Pepper cover. I just need my magnifying glass to make sure it's really him. Also need my meds, because the rest of the cover gives me seizures!

Washington Square Press

In one of my first posts to this blog i mentioned my first brush with the work of Stephen Crane: picking up a copy of The Red Badge of Courage in my middle school's library. I had an image of that cover in my mind all these years since, but i only recently found a photo of it online:

The soldiers drew me in. I only wonder if the cover wasn't quite so cool, when if ever would i have discovered Stephen Crane for myself? So i'd just like to thank the publisher, Washington Square Press, for catching my eye. There is also a Signet paperback with an almost identical cover:

I don't know where that Civil War photo comes from, so if you do please leave a comment below. Just don't say Matthew Brady or you'll be shot with a rusty cartridge. It's a great photo, and i remember as i kid i was trying to decide which Red Badge character would be which soldier in the photo. I suppose for me, Henry is the one in the second row from the front, on the right, and Wilson is the leaning guy on his left. What do you think? And who are the rest of them?

After getting hooked by the Red Badge i then went to the public library looking for Crane books and found this edition of Maggie & other stories, which also happens to be published by Washington Square Press: