Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Short Fiction (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
    Unavailable
    The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Short Fiction (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
    Unavailable
    The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Short Fiction (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
    Ebook312 pages5 hours

    The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Short Fiction (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

    By Stephen Crane and Richard Fusco

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Short Fiction, by Stephen Crane, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:
    • New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
    • Biographies of the authors
    • Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
    • Footnotes and endnotes
    • Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
    • Comments by other famous authors
    • Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations
    • Bibliographies for further reading
    • Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate
    All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.   Young Henry Fleming dreams of finding glory and honor as a Union soldier in the American Civil War. Yet he also harbors a hidden fear about how he may react when the horror and bloodshed of battle begin. Fighting the enemy without and the terror within, Fleming must prove himself and find his own meaning of valor.

    Unbelievable as it may seem, Stephen Crane had never been a member of any army nor had taken part in any battle when he wrote The Red Badge of Courage. But upon its publication in 1895, when Crane was only twenty-four, Red Badge was heralded as a new kind of war novel, marked by astonishing insight into the true psychology of men under fire. Along with the seminal short stories included in this volume—“The Open Boat,” “The Veteran,” and “The Men in the Storm”—The Red Badge of Courage unleashed Crane’s deeply influential impressionistic style.

    Richard Fusco has been an Assistant Professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia since 1997. A specialist in nineteenth-century American literature and in short-story narrative theory, he has published on a variety of American, British, and Continental literary figures.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBarnes & Noble Classics
    Release dateJun 1, 2009
    ISBN9781411433021
    Unavailable
    The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Short Fiction (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
    Author

    Stephen Crane

    Stephen Crane was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1871. He died in Germany on June 5, 1900.

    Read more from Stephen Crane

    Related to The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Short Fiction (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

    Related ebooks

    Classics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Comedies Usually Reward Cynicism. Then Came ‘Ted Lasso.’

      Jul 23, 2021

      As “Ted Lasso” returns for a second season, culture watchers reflect on what has made a comedy show that aims for optimism and kindness a sleeper hit.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Great Guns!

      Sep 4, 2018

      Great Guns!
      10 min read

    • Article

      Sheltered Past

      Jun 27, 2019

      Sheltered Past
      5 min read

    • Article

      An Adventurer’s Idol

      Oct 24, 2023

      An Adventurer’s Idol
      6 min read

    • Article

      Shell Shock And Awe

      Jun 1, 2023

      Always, in wars, there are the things we don't see coming. World War I had a lot of them: airplanes, machine guns, barbed wire, tanks, flamethrowers, and super-high-explosive artillery shells— the blooming, booming fruit of 19th-century scientific pr

      3 min read

    • Article

      Must See, Must Read

      Jul 24, 2018

      Must See, Must Read
      11 min read

    • Article

      Must See, Must Read

      Oct 26, 2021

      Must See, Must Read
      12 min read

    • Article

      I Am Become a Name

      Dec 1, 2022

      I Am Become a Name
      20 min read

    • Article

      10 Books To Get You Feeling Grateful For Thanksgiving

      Nov 14, 2019

      Winter is a time to look back on the year and prepare for the future. Get in a thoughtful mood with the 10 best books of November 2019.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Finding Facts In Fiction

      Mar 12, 2021

      Finding Facts In Fiction
      10 min read

    • Article

      Frontline Oracle

      Jun 1, 2023

      David Chrisinger's The Soldier's Truth is a road book suffused with a spirit of discovery and adventure. Perhaps no genre is better suited to its subject, the World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle, who could not stay home. Chrisinger asked himself wh

      4 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Dec 30, 2021

      Reviews
      6 min read

    • Article

      February's 10 Books To Break The Winter Doldrums

      Feb 13, 2019

      Here are the 10 books that impressed the Monitor's book critics this month: 1   Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen Kin Stewart is a time-traveling secret agent with a heart of gold who got lost on a mission and created a family. Intelligent, caring

      3 min read

    • Article

      Complicated Men

      Aug 11, 2021

      HOW did a member of the minor gentry from Huntingdon become the head of state? It’s one of the great questions of British history, and Ronald Hutton, professor of history at Bristol University, comes as close as possible to answering it. Until the ea

      5 min read

    • Article

      Generation Yank

      Nov 23, 2021

      Generation Yank
      9 min read

    • Article

      Must See, Must Read

      Sep 25, 2018

      (1936, by Neill C. Wilson): In this classic Old West history author Wilson relates the story of business partners Henry Wells (1805–78) and William Fargo (1818–81), who incorporated Wells, Fargo & Co. in 1852, chronicling the successes and struggles

      10 min read

    • Article

      Salute The Master Of Sword And Word

      Jun 29, 2023

      HOW MANY BRITISH GENERALS HAVE been able to write as well as they could fight? Strangely perhaps, quite a few. Field Marshal Sir Michael Carver (Dilemmas of the Desert War, The Seven Ages of the British Army etc), General Sir David Fraser (And We Sha

      6 min read

    • Article

      Must See, Must Read

      Mar 1, 2022

      Must See, Must Read
      14 min read

    • Article

      Forever In The Changing Light

      Sep 1, 2022

      One day after his death on October 6, 2019, the Irish Times printed thirtyone “lightning elegies” for Ciaran Carson from poets, writers, and friends, including Colm Tóibín, John Banville, Michael Longley, and Gerald Dawe (Doyle). Paul Muldoon publish

      28 min read

    • Article

      10 Fantastic May Books To Whisk You Away

      May 14, 2019

      Our 10 best picks for May celebrate lively fiction, true-life adventure, and the history of America's post-Civil War Reconstruction era.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Those Who Left Us: Select Literary Obituaries of 2017

      Jan 10, 2018

      Poets, editors, songwriters, teachers, journalists, novelists—some great writers and some under-sung ones left us this year. Here, in chronological order of their deaths, is a selective compendium of literary obituaries from 2017.     Bhara

      15 min read

    • Article

      Stephen Crane At The Front

      Nov 5, 2019

      Stephen Crane At The Front
      12 min read

    • Article

      Must See, Must Read

      Jan 22, 2019

      (2018, by Rod Macleod): Born with a name dime novelist Ned Buntline might have made up, Samuel Benfield Steele was among the founding fathers of the North-West Mounted Police, and his own exploits helped make it legendary. Macleod’s extensive researc

      13 min read

    Reviews for The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Short Fiction (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

    3.5/5

    90 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Classics. How do you approach them? In the context of the time it was written, in the context of the time in which it was popular, in the context of the time it is being read, in the context of being forced to read it as part of 7th Grade literature? (Well, probably not that last.) Trying to cover all is a fool’s game, so I tend to focus on the enjoyment I am getting from reading a classic the second I am reading it. (When push comes to shove, how is any other approach anything more than “being forced to read it as part of 7th Grade literature”?)And, in that context, The Red Badge of Courage suffers. Not because it is not a good book and a good read. But because the virgin ground it originally plowed has now been almost farmed to death. In its time, this book took the subject on in this way for the first time and it had an immediate impact. And that impact included innumerable books that have gone on to further explore humans and their personal reactions to war and battle. This book opened the door, and everyone else piled into the room. And for the reader that has spent any time in that dog pile, the impact of this book is lessened.So what do we wind up with? A good book about the civil war that gives us a realistic representation of the foot soldiers’ war, and a compelling story of a young man (boy) facing his limitations and growing past them. Is this bad? No – it is, in fact, worth the time. Does it distract from the power of this book that others have taken what it achieved and done more? Unfortunately, yes. So we wind up with a decent introduction to the civil war and to books on wars in general. But, the impact has been lost over time.(A coda. This edition includes three short stories – including one which takes up the story of Courage’s protagonist when he is an old man – which are meant to add to the enjoyment and understanding of the writing. It does nothing but distract, and the stories do not feel particular powerful in this context. Add the point that this edition is heavy with foot- and endnotes describing the most easily understood concepts [after all, we must make sure that the 7th grader is told every little nuance] and, while I recommend anyone read the book, I also recommend that stay as far away as possible from this edition.)
    • 5/5
      Reading classics puts modern day concerns into perspective quite nicely. For example the hue and cry over television violence. Sure, motion pictures provide a powerful medium and create an indelible memory upon impressionable youngsters, no doubt about it. Yet reading this book, the visions Stephen Crane describes so vividly in word, will make a lasting impression with me. Our society has so removed violence - a good thing - that any aggression is seen as a horror - occasionally a bad thing. From the dawn of man and his fight for survival, violence has been a necessity and product of the environment and his will to live. Mr. Crane's short story of a young enlistee is filled with such detail in so little space, it was truly breathtaking. I literally found myself reading a page before noticing I was reading with bated breath. Nary a page went by where he wasn't enticing all the sense to understand the sensations of a raging battlefield. The "hurry-up-and-wait" way of the military. The anticipatory build up to what becomes a surprise despite waiting for the event. Mr. Crane personifies everything that isn't human. Not so distant clumps of forest, obscured by gun smoke and morning fog become living foes; housing unseen Rebels, only their gross movements and gun barrel flares give life to them like some fantasy world forest waiting to devour lost travelers. Lines of men become singularly animal-like as they snake across the horizon; enemy platoons become grey, black, or brown silhouettes ominously moving to and fro in the hazy distance, individually they would be less daunting foe than they are a blurred together mass.The Barnes & Noble Classic's edition also contains some short stories. "The Veteran" follows-up the life of Henry Fleming. While reading The Red Badge, I waited for the untimely death of the hero; triumphantly it never came to fruition and ended with optimism. "The Veteran" concludes his life succinctly, proving him to remain as bravely as he became during the two days of the original story.
    • 5/5
      Yes, this is a war novel. The Red Badge of Courage describes Henry Fleming, a teenage soldier, as he first encounters the red monster god that is war. He is first tested and found wanting, then proves himself. The depiction of the battles is brilliantly done; Crane's bold use of metaphor and imagery, electric. Yet, while the larger setting is The Civil War, more particularly the battle fought at Chancellorsville, Va, the battle of greater importance is Henry's internal one as he develops from a callow, at times craven youth beset with self doubt to a man cognizant of his range of strengths and weaknesses.

      Having taught the novel to high school sophomores, it has been my experience that young students become bogged down with Henry's persistent self-analysis. This amazes me since Henry's struggles so perfectly mirror their own, minus the actual battle. Here I am just musing...how might the book be taught in a way that makes the most of this aspect?

      Crane's descriptive powers are famously powerful as is his sophisticated presentation of the young man's psyche. In Henry he creates a character who is at once despicable and noble, one we ultimately see as ourselves.

      Question: Is the novel "anti-war." My father, a high ranking military officer and Civil War historian, has never read it as such. He sees it as a accurate description of war and the typical emotional struggles soldiers face. However, many people think it is so. I am not sure. Is Shakepeare's Henry V anti-war? The depictions of the carnage are horrifically graphic. The thoughts and actions of the characters at times deplorable. But, war is hell. Does depicting it as such make a novel anti-war? Or is it how Henry is described as succumbing to a mob mentality becoming part of the killing machine that makes people think so. This is certainly something to think about. My inclination is to say it is not.