Captain Maximus was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1985. The collection continued in the mode of Airships — short, intense stories about men in various states of crisis, set mostly in the American South — but with a darker edge. Hannah’s alcoholism, which would eventually lead to a period of silence in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was increasingly visible in the work, and the stories had a desperate, last-chance quality.
The best stories — including the title story, about a man who has lost everything and is trying to find a reason to keep going — were among the most powerful things Hannah ever wrote.
Collecting Captain Maximus
First edition (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1985): Boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- Fine in dust jacket: $40–$100
- Very good: $15–$40
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation.
The Second Collection
Captain Maximus (1985) collects stories written during Hannah’s most turbulent period — when his drinking was at its worst and his personal life was in chaos. The stories are correspondingly extreme: violent, sexually explicit, and written at a pitch of intensity that sometimes tips into incoherence. At their best, they match Airships for raw power; at their weakest, they read like dispatches from a consciousness under siege.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Hannah’s drinking affect his writing? Hannah acknowledged that alcoholism both fuelled and damaged his work. His early novels and Airships were written while drinking heavily, and some critics argue that the manic energy of his best prose is inseparable from the chemical chaos of his life. After achieving sobriety in the 1990s, his prose became calmer and more controlled — Yonder Stands Your Orphan (2004) is his most measured novel.