Red Badge of Courage 1983

1983. soft. 1983 Reader's Digest Edition Publisher-Printing Location: Reader's Digest Association, Pleasantville, New York Date: 1983 Second Printing Size and Page Count: 6"" X 9"" Tall 176 Pages By Stephen Crane ISBN: 0895771551 / 0-89577-155-1 Condition: -Fine- Pages are tight and clean. No noticed markings. Hard back Red and Blue boards with Gold Lettering. Contains the complete text of the First American edition Published by D. Appleton and Company in 1895. Includes Publishers 4 page Flyer Illustrations Information:17 Beautiful Double Page Color Illustrations -------- An excellent opportunity for the collector, researcher or historian --------- The Red Badge of Courage, written in 1895 by Stephen Crane (1871-1900), is considered by many literary critics to be one of the greatest of all American novels. This is a book about the Civil War, and one Union soldier's struggle with his inner demons as he prepares for, and fights his first battle. Although the story Crane tells in The Red Badge of Courage is deceptively simple, it reveals, better than any other novel I've read, the full horror of war, and the complexity and unpredictability of human behavior in the crucible of battle. Henry Fleming (always referred to by Crane as ""the youth"") is a young northerner who, despite his mother's objections, enlists in the Union army with great patriotic fervor. As he awaits his first battle, the youth ponders how he will react: will he stand and fight, or will he flee? The answer comes soon enough. His regiment is attacked by the Confederates; at first the youth stays to fight, but, during a second attack, he watches other soldiers run away from battle in a state of panic. He himself is overcome by fear, and he too flees. The youth finally reaches a state of exhaustion and stops running. Immediately, his conscience begins to gnaw at him. He hears rumors that his regiment has actually stood and won the day against its foe. His thoughts and emotions begin to run the gamut from rationalization, to self-loathing, to fear of being discovered a coward. He continually looks for ways to justify his flight. The youth hears the continuing sound of battle in the distance, and is drawn to it, almost as a moth to a flame; he decides to return to his regiment, but loses his way. As he tries to find his way back to his regiment, he is confronted by people who serve to prick his conscience even further. He witnesses the horrible death of Jim Conklin, one of his friends from his regiment. While walking with a group of wounded soldiers, he is asked by one tattered and probably insane soldier what the nature of his wounds is. Shamed by this inquisition, he runs away, afraid he'll be uncovered as the poltroon he is beginning to believe himself to be. He begins to wish for a ""red badge of courage"" - a wound - which would signify his bravery in battle. He gets his wish in a roundabout way when he attempts to ask another soldier for directions. He gets into a scuffle and is cut on the head with the soldier's rifle; this becomes his ""red badge of courage."" When he finally makes it back to his unit, he lies to his comrades-in-arms, saying he received the wound as a result of being shot in the heat of battle. Review Source