The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane Modern Library

The Red Badge of Courage
An Episode of the American Civil War
Stephen Crane
New York: The Modern Library
Copyright 1951
Introduction by Robert Wooster Stallman
Modern Library Number 130
267 pages

The front hinge is weakening, otherwise the binding is in good condition. There is underlining on the introduction pages only, main text is clean. The red cover shows light wear except it was bound on upside down. The dust jacket is toned and edge worn and the spine is faded. Acceptable in Acceptable dust-jacket. Hardcover.

The novel is told through the eyes of Henry Fleming, a young soldier caught up in an unnamed Civil War battle who is motivated not by the unselfish heroism of conventional war stories, but by fear, cowardice, and finally, egotism. However, in his struggle to find reality amid the nightmarish chaos of war, the young soldier also discovers courage, humility, and perhaps, wisdom. Although Crane had never been in battle before writing The Red Badge of Courage, the book was widely praised by experienced soldiers for its uncanny re-creation of the sights, sounds, and sense of actual combat. Its publication brought Crane immediate international fame and established him as a major American writer. Today, nearly a century later, the book ranks as an enduring landmark of American fiction. (#PB302743)