The Red Badge of Courage and Other Stories [Paperback]

USStephen Crane(1871–1900) was active as a reporter around the world in addition to being an acclaimed novelist.

Gary Scharnhorstis editor ofAmerican Literary Realism and editor in alternating years of the research annual American Literary Scholarship.Henry Fleming, a raw Union Army recruit in the American Civil War, is anxious to confirm his patriotism and manhood—to earn his “badge of courage.” But his dreams of heroism and invulnerability are soon shattered when he flees the Confederate enemy during his baptism of fire and then witnesses the horrible death of a friend. Plunged unwillingly into the nightmare of war, Fleming survives by sheer luck and instinct.

This edition of Stephen Crane’s poignant classic is supplemented by five of his acclaimed short stories as well as selected poetry, offering the full range of this great American author’s extraordinary talent.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

INTRODUCTION
Stephen Crane’sThe Red Badge of Courageis a startlingly realistic portrayal of warfare by a writer who had never experienced it. More broadly, the novel is a searching exploration of the mysteries of human motivation. The landscape in which the novel is set is as much the mind of Henry Fleming, the novel’s protagonist, as it is the Civil War battlefields on which the outward action takes place. Henry is full of dichotomies, the most central of them being cowardice and bravery. Throughout the nolS6