The Red Badge of Courage (Collins Classics)

Stephen Crane

May 2012 · Sold by HarperCollins UK

About this ebook

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‘He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless. Whatever he had learned of himself was here of no avail. He was an unknown quantity.’

Following one soldier’s journey from naive recruit to hardened survivor, The Red Badge of Courage is a vivid and powerfully psychological take on the American Civil War. Fighting for the Union army, Henry Fleming is thrown into a bloody war where the harsh realities and horrors of battle quickly become evident. Fearful, occasionally vain, but always viewing the war with honest eyes, Henry eventually comes to thrive as a soldier in combat, and it is with a a new conscience and outlook that he matures into manhood.

About the author

Stephen Crane authored novels, short stories, and poetry, but is best known for his realistic war fiction. Crane was a correspondent in the Greek-Turkish War and the Spanish American War, penning numerous articles, war reports and sketches. His most famous work, The Red Badge of Courage (1896), portrays the initial cowardice and later courage of a Union soldier in the Civil War. In addition to six novels, Crane wrote over a hundred short stories including "The Blue Hotel," "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," and "The Open Boat." His first book of poetry was The Black Riders (1895), ironic verse in free form. Crane wrote 136 poems. Crane was born November 1, 1871, in Newark, New Jersey. After briefly attending Lafayette College and Syracuse University, he became a freelance journalist in New York City. He published his first novel, Maggie: Girl of the Streets, at his own expense because publishers found it controversial: told with irony and sympathy, it is a story of the slum girl driven to prostitution and then suicide. Crane died June 5, 1900, at age 28 from tuberculosis.