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Young Civil War soldier Henry Fielding endures the nightmare of battle as he comes to grips with his fears and feelings of cowardice. Stephen Crane's powerful, imaginative, emotionally compelling description of war established him as a major American writer and propelled him to immediate international celebrity.
The Red Badge of Courage FROM OUR EDITORS One of the greatest war novels of all time, this is the story of the Civil War through the eyes of Henry Fleming, an ordinary farm boy turned soldier. Marks a departure from the traditional treatment of war in fiction as it captures the sights and sounds of war while creating the intricate inner world of Henry. Probes the personal reactions of unknown foot soldiers fighting unknown enemies. Henry Fleming is motivated not by courage or patriotism but by cowardice, fear, and finally egoism, and events are filtered through his consciousness. ANNOTATION In the spring of 1863, as he faces battle for the first time at Chancellorsville, Virginia, a young Union soldier matures to manhood and finds peace of mind as he comes to grips with his conflicting emotions about war.
FROM THE PUBLISHER Written by Stephen Crane at the age of twenty-one, The Red Badge of Courage is one of the greatest war novels of all time — so groundbreaking that critics consider it to be the first work of modern American fiction. Although Crane never witnessed warfare, The Red Badge of Courage is a realistic and terrifying account of the Civil War and the fear that a young soldier must face on the battlefield as well as within himself.
SYNOPSIS Published thirty years after the Civil War, this "impressionistic" American classic tells a war story in a thoroughly modern way - without a trace of romanticizing. Through the eyes of ordinary soldier Henry Fleming, we follow his psychological turmoil, from the excitement of patriotism to the bloody realities of battle and his flight from it. In the end, he overcomes his fear and disillusionment, and fights with courage. WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING as to 'masterpiece,' there is no doubt that The Red Badge of Courage is that, if only because of the marvellous accord of the vivid impressionistic description of action on that woodland battlefield and the imagined style of the analysis of ... the inward moral struggle going on in the breast of one individual - the Young Soldier. — Joseph Conrad
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