Recommendations from our site
“The Red Badge of Courage marked a crucial moment in the history of Civil War literature. With rare exception, veterans had avoided graphic details in their memoirs, preferring to share highly romanticized and sanitized accounts in keeping with Victorian sensibilities. By contrast, Crane drew on his considerable talent as a writer, and on his physical and emotional experiences on the football field, to breathe life into the dry accounts so often published by veterans. The Red Badge of Courage teems with the speed, dirt, blood, fear, adrenaline, and chaos of the battlefield – precisely those details that are missing from most nineteenth-century accounts of the war.” Read more...
Classic Novels of the American Civil War
Craig A. Warren, Literary Scholar
“It’s the story of a very young soldier, about 14 or 15 years old, in the American Civil War, and it’s about him fearing that he’s a coward. He runs away and finds himself and finds the courage to come back and take his place alongside his fellow soldiers. I think in the heart of almost every man and woman there is this fear that if you were put in that position where you had to show courage, your courage might fail you.” Read more...
Michael Morpurgo recommends his Favourite Children’s Books
Michael Morpurgo, Children's Author
“The way in which he suddenly finds himself caught up in a battle is absolutely brilliant in its description of the battle itself and the emotions he feels, the way he reacts, the impression made on him by fear, horror, dread, exhilaration, triumph, exhaustion, hunger sweeping over him in great waves…It is very short, incredibly vivid and I would put it on my list of the best 12 books that everybody ought to read.” Read more...
Michael Howard, Military Historians & Veteran
“It’s the classic novel of the American Civil War. Henry Fleming — the youth whose tale is told — is worried throughout whether he will find he’s a man of traditional courage, or whether he’ll find that he is a coward.” Read more...
Chris Walsh, Literary Scholar
The Red Badge of Courage is a novel set in the American Civil War by the novelist and poet Stephen Crane (1871-1900). It’s not strictly historical fiction—which, according to some definitions, has to be written at least half a century after the time period the book is set in—but Crane did not himself participate in the Civil War, so it is certainly a work of fiction. It’s been recommended several times on Five Books.
