Colonel Rowan immortalized the story of his daring mission to Cuba in "A Message to Garcia," for it is through this modes essay that Colonel Rowan has influenced the lives of countless millions.

Funny, but suffers from the classic 'boo-hoo I'm at the (right) end of the normal distribution' whining. ( )

Elbert Hubbard had a way with words! This is his most famous essay, but his other writings that include interviews with luminaries of his time (early 20th century) are also beautifully crafted and worth reading. ( )

I found the story of the story as fascinating as the story itself.
The little article was written (the author explains in the forward "Apologia"), after a conversation between his young sons about who the 'real' hero of the Spanish-American War was. One son asserted that is was actually Col. Andrew Summers Rowan, whom had been summoned by Pres. McKinley to deliver a message secretly to the leader of the insurgents, General Garcia, in Cuba. The problem was that no one quite knew for sure where Garcia was. Rowan (only a Lt. at the time) was sent to find him and deliver the message as quickly as possible, alone and unguarded. He managed to find him in the (then) jungles on Cuba after only 4 days, and the later victory that happened was surely as a result of this. Rowan ended up being decorated for deed, and Pres. McKinley said "I regard this achievement as one of the most hazardous and heroic deeds in military warfare."
Upon reflecting on the conversation between his sons, the author realized that the one son was accurate, and wrote the article in the space of an hour for his magazines. He enlarged the meaning of the heroics Rowan did to apply to other areas of life-- labor, politics, family, etc. asking why are there not more Rowans in this world who are willing to go the extra mile and give something their all. He didn't highly regard it-- didn't even title it, but looked at it as more filler between the other stuff. When record numbers started pouring in for copies of reprints, he came figured out it was for this one article. It ended up in a visiting Prince from Russia's hands who took it back, had it translated and distributed to every soldier then serving in the Russian Army during the Russo-Japanese War. Upon taking Russian soldiers prisoners-of-war and finding a copy of this on each of them, the Japanese Government decided it must be very important and had it translated, and on order of the Mikado, had a copy distributed to every government employee-- soldier or civilian. By 1913, more copies had been printed world-wide than "any other literary venture has ever attained during the lifetime of its author, in all history-- thanks to a series of lucky accidents." (1913 figures)
The author, Elbert Hubbard, was well known at the time, not only for publishing his magazines "The Philistine" and "The Fra", but also printing fine editions of books out of publishing firm, The Roycroft Shop. He perished on board the Lusitania when it was sank by a German torpedo in 1915. ( )

A quick and painless read. Unfortunately, it is one of those books that only really makes sense when you've been around long enough to tell someone else to read it. When it does make sense, though, there is no substitute for the way it illustrates its point. ( )

A collection of fourteen essays on a variety of topics, I particularly enjoyed "Advantages and Disadvantages." My enjoyment was marred by a few references to people I don't know which meant I didn't get a full understanding of the text. ( )

A message to Garcia is nothing more than a short inspirational essays of not much more than six pages. The self-published author created a hype which made the essay extremely popular. It is claimed to have sold over 40 million copies. The content of the essay is derived from a heroic mission undertaken by Captain Andrew Rowan to convey a message to the Cuban rebels in Spanish-controlled Cuba to establish contact and form an alliance with the United States against Spain.

Elbert Hubbard essay, published in 1899, was based on a report he had heard about Andrew Rowan brave mission. Many years later, Andrew Rowan, who was a published author, wrote a short story based on his experience, entitled "How I carried the message to Garcia". While this story is apparently based on Rowan's experience, he has also sometimes asserted that the story is entirely fictional.

While A message to Garcia may have had its function in its day, the essay is of no particular value to readers today. It is written in an old-fashioned style, by a boastful and over-self confident author. As the essay is so extremely short, it is now usually printed together with a number of supplementary materials. In the edition by Shanghai Joint Publishing (2010), Andrew Rowan's short story How I carried the message to Garcia is one of the appendices. This is somewhat awkward, because Rowan's story has much more merit, and deserves much more to be read than Hubbard's essay. Rowan's story is a fairly well-written adventurous story of about 40 pages. It would make much more sense to publish Rowan's story and add Hubbard's essay as an appendix.

The Chinese edition also includes two further contributions inspired on the theme and related to the aforementioned materials. These contributions are however of a shamefully low quality.

The historical background of How I carried the message to Garcia is definitely interesting, and the short story might well be read by a wider audience. Hopefully, the story can be accessed through anthologies. ( )

Wow... should I be worried that my boss asked me to read this? He said it was "really good", I found it to be bullshit corporate propaganda. ( )