 The Monster and Other Stories was the last collection of Crane 's work to be published during his lifetime . In the mid @-@ 20th century , the novella received a resurgence of critical attention , especially in regard to studies of race relations in late 19th @-@ century New York . Critic Chester L. Wolford wrote that the story " reveals truths not socially accepted for almost another hundred years . The story is , indeed , an excoriation of social conditions for the blacks , but more important ... it is an excoriation of all communities , all societies , in all places and all times . " African @-@ American author Ralph Ellison called The Monster , alongside Mark Twain 's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , " one of the parents of the modern American novel " . In a 1999 article , critic James Nagel stated that " no other work of short fiction in the decade was more important thematically , and nothing until William Faulkner 's " The Bear " so enriched the genre of the United States . Screenwriter and director Albert Band adapted Crane 's novella for the 1959 film Face of Fire , starring Cameron Mitchell as Dr. Trescott and James Whitmore as Johnson . Unlike in the original story , Johnson was depicted as white , and his first name was changed from Henry to Monk . 
