The Red Badge of Courage: Timeless Classics

Written by Stephen Crane

Narrated by Saddleback Educational Publishing

The Civil War battlefields are nothing like Henry Fleming had imagined them to be. Isn't it the duty of every living creature to save its own life? Yet Henry is afraid to return to his regiment. His comrades are sure to sneer at his cowardice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Saddleback Educational Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781612475172

Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane (1871-1900) was an American poet and author. Along with his literary work, Crane was a journalist, working as a war correspondent in both Cuba and Greece. Though he lived a short life, passing away due to illness at age twenty-eight, Crane’s literary work was both prolific and highly celebrated. Credited to creating one of the earliest examples of American Naturalism, Crane wrote many Realist works and decorated his prose and poetry with intricate and vivid detail.

Reviews for The Red Badge of Courage

[tess_i_am48 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Almost impossible to tell who is speaking, thinking, etc. Had to re-read many passages to attribute it to an individual. I kept reading because it is a "classic" and in theory it would get good. I was disappointed. Good thing it was a "short" classic. Why IS this a classic?

[tess_schoolmarm · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Almost impossible to tell who is speaking, thinking, etc. Had to re-read many passages to attribute it to an individual. I kept reading because it is a "classic" and in theory it would get good. I was disappointed. Good thing it was a "short" classic. Why IS this a classic?

[crewman_number_6 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Could this guy be any more annoying? He runs away, he comes back, runs away, comes back. Make up your mind. I know this is supposed to be a classic, but there really are better "classics" out there.

[benuathanasia · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It's a bit of a boring slog, but taken in short bits, the language was rather interesting (aside from a few gems like this, "He puckered his lips into a pucker"...*facepalm*).Update: Ok, it took me a while to figure out why this book bored me so much. Think about a battle scene from any war movie. Now, imagine that that was just about all the movie was. No matter how good it was (and let's face this, this book is no Battle of Helm's Deep), it can't be all there is! Fight, trudge to next fight. Fight, trudge to next fight. Henry has friends, but there's no character development or interesting interactions. He has issues with some of his superiors, but he's such a personality-less blah, that no conflict develops with them. This is (IMO) one of the most fascinating wars character-wise, but the characters were just so damn flat and boring!

[stefany_6 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Red Badge of Courage is a descriptive narration of one youth's first battle experience during the Civil War. This book deals with a dark time in American History and the writer treats it as such. The detail is stark, bleak and Crane doesn't sugar coat anything. I'm not disappointed that I finally picked this up and read it. It is a very short novel and doesn't take much of a time commitment to read. I did however find it dragging in parts and it took me a while to get into it. Henry, the youth, of the novel is a fairly simple individual who is shown the ugly face of war and his reactions to his first experiences are what the book is about. All in all, this is a good book, but nowhere near great. I'm not a big fan of Crane's style in his storytelling, however he does paint a vivid picture and the reader gets a clear idea of what it may have been like to be an unwitting youth going into battle for the first time with little training or warning of what to expect.

[michael_rose-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I believe I was introduced to the book first, not the Audie Murphy movie based on it. I don't remember as many of the details as I'd like, but it's good as far as Civil War novels go. I remember how he got his "red badge of courage", his conversation across a river with a Confederate, and one poor bastard who insisted on dying in a particular spot (as he was dying anyway).

[bryndahlquis · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found it very hard to keep my attention focused on it, and half the time I honestly had no idea what was going on. But, since I really wasn't interested, I never could take the time to go back and find the context.I can kind of see why this book has become such a classic, but I have to say that it's just not for me.

[dbsovereign · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Crane's poetic realism makes us see war and the fear inspired by it as something we would have to experience in order to understand. If we'd been in his place, would we have run too? And how many battles do we have to fight before we realize that the true war is with ourselves?

[carmenmilligan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book, which I should have probably read in my high school years. Crane's writing has a definite cadence, and at times I found myself in the midst of a true page-turner, as I wanted to know how a particular scene would be played.

The story is more a character study, rather than the description of a particular battle of the Civil War. In that, there is no pro- or anti-war sentiment, but merely the focus of a young man struggling to leave his mother to go to war, and then details of how the war changes him. Because of the frenzy of the writing, it is hard to tell how much time passes from the beginning of the novel to the end, but much growing occurs in the lives of several soldiers. While this story focuses on the Union, I can imagine that the feelings were very similar for the rebels.

Crane uses the language beautifully in describing war. His use of colors, giving human characteristics to inanimate objects, and creating wonderful visuals of the smoke and fog of gunfire on the layout of the land ... it's quite mesmerizing.

Highly recommended.

[t1bnotown · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This is among the very worst books I've ever read! I absolutely hated it! In my eighth grade journal (we read it in eighth grade), I nicknamed it The Red Book of Boredom. It was simply atrociously awful, and it went on and on and on. I remember no merits or saving graces in this one. To be kept in mind- I like most books in general, even books I don't especially LIKE, I feel friendly towards and am generally amicable towards. This book sucked.

[auntieclio · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The Red Badge of Courage is yet another book that has been praised so much I thought I should read it. While I can't say that I enjoyed it, or even appreciated it, I can say I'm not sorry I read it. But into the Give Away pile it goes.

[seriousgrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

To say that Red Badge of Courage is about a young man in combat during the Civil War sells the story short. Henry is a young man facing many things for the first time in his life and throughout battle he struggles with all of it. It's a historical snapshot of the psychology of war. It goes beyond whether Henry can be brave or not. Whether he is a true soldier or not.

[matthew254 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Red Badge of Courage is an American Civil War story masterfully written by a guy who never had an war experience. I regrettably felt a lot of connection to the protagonist. I also noticed familiar themes of incompetence in military leadership. Unsettling to think that little has changed in common observations made by enlisted men of their officers. This, too, was an unabridged audiobook expertly read by one of the most gutturally pleasant voices I've ever had the pleasure of listening to.

[kronos999_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Another book that I no doubt should have read as a child, but never got to (not being American). Very fast read. I finished the entire thing in about an hour. While it is a classic study of the horrors gripping a young soldier on his first trip to the battlefield and influential in its time, the book didn't really grab me. This is probably due to the use of theme as plot in a fairly short novel so I never really became attached to Henry.

[jvioland_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A seminal read. Highly recommended. It should be read by every American. It should be required reading in high school.

[soylentgreen23 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Crane's work, an early entry in the pantheon of American literature, can be read as either an anti-war polemic, or a pro-war piece of propaganda. Certainly the main character, who goes through a personal crisis when faced with battle, swings like a pendulum between the two extremes, and it is unclear by the end which side he settles on. For instance, is it good to fight the good fight because it is good, or because it is necessary?

[ncd1969 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of my all time favorite books!

[hemlokgang · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Rite of passage? Ideal v. reality? Historical fiction? This novella has all of those. Stephen Crane wrote this story in 1895 without ever having fought in battle. Somehow he still creates this vivid account of young Henry as he arrives to fight for the first time in the American Civil War. Powerful story.

[adelaide1_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I love Crane's use for metaphors in this book, because they completely make sense with war and everything that's going on.

[iubookgirl · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Of all the novels I was forced to read as a junior high/high school student, this stand out as my favorite. I am not a fan of this type of literature, but was drawn in by Crane's story of a Civil War soldier and the emotional and psychological tole the war took on him.

[yardchicken2_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Painful to read. I know it's a classic. I know it is historically relevant. I still think it sucks.

[cyderry · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The Red Badge of Courage is the tale of the initial cowardice and later courage of a Union soldier in the Civil War. The young soldier grows up and learns to deal with his feelings about the war.I had heard so much about this book but was terribly disappointed. I had a very difficult time getting through this "saga". Just a another CLASSIC that didn't grab me. Don't know what the fuss was all about.

[domingosantos_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Somehow over the years I had missed reading this classic. It is well-done, and the dialogue is especially well-done. My only criticism is that the transition from battle-to-non-battle and back, and from chapter-to-chapter often lacked a certain expected continuity.

[vanishext · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It is a great classic if you like stories about courage in battle.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The only reason I listened to the audio version of The Red Badge of Courage is that it's a classic of American literature. I wasn't impressed. I don't know if it's because I am not a fan of American literature in general, or if it's because the book has been overrated. Throughout the book, Crane refers to his protagonist, Henry, as “the youth”. Was he afraid that readers were going to forget how young some of these soldiers were if he didn't continually remind us of it? The almost exclusive focus on Henry's youth at the expense of other aspects of his character worked to distance me from Henry. I would have abandoned the book early on if I hadn't had a personal reason for wanting to finish it. It's the book my father taught when he did his student teaching. I don't know if he chose the book or if it was assigned. I wish my father was still here to talk with me about this book. If anyone could help me get anything positive out of it, he could have.

[corinneblackmer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Henry Fleming finds that he, like so many others, becomes a coward when first faced with the gruesome rigors of the battlefield. He redeems himself--in reckless and hate-filled fashion--while Crane depicts to a point of historically accurate perfection, the confusions that led to Union defeat in the Battle of Chancellorsville.

[lizzybeth23 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Such an exciting and informative book.

[keegopatrick · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a good book but a little hard to read. I noticed that the author used the same words a lot such as crimson while describing things but I really enjoyed the book. My mom suggested this book and told me that she had read it when she was in high school as a mandatory read so I figured I should check it out since it is a classic of sorts. It was a short book and a fast read but I do think that I have a better understanding of what warfare was like on the front lines of the Civil War. I think that I will be reading more books from the civil war era.

[srboone · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not as exciting or as emotionally relevant as I thought it would be, but immensely enjoyable.

[brose72 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Story of valor and fear experienced by civil war combatants. How the personal fortunes and perceptions of the participants change so quickly during the tumultuous conflicts into which the characters are thrown.