The Red Badge of Courage (Diversion Classics)

Stephen Crane

Mar 2016 · Diversion Books

About this ebook

Featuring an appendix of discussion questions, this Diversion Classics edition is ideal for use in book groups and classrooms.

Young Union Army private Henry Fleming has dreamed of battle his entire life, but when Confederate forces bear down on his regiment, panic sets in, and Henry flees. Overcome with guilt, he wanders among a group of wounded men coping with the ramifications of combat. Exhausted, hungry, and still reeling between shame over his abandonment and anger at being used as a pawn of war, Henry returns to the regiment. Once there, he discovers that something in him has changed forever.

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.