Introduction

One of the most famous novels about the Civil War ever written, Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage first appeared in print not as a novel but as a newspaper serial. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, newspapers and magazines would often print a small portion of a novel in each issue, with the hope that interested readers would buy subsequent issues to find out what happened next. This tactic was used effectively to boost a periodical's sales. In 1894, a shortened version of Crane's The Red Badge of Courage was serialized in the Philadelphia Press.

The American reading public of the time was hungry for stories about war, particularly the Civil War. The publication of The Red Badge of Courage established Stephen Crane, only twenty-four years old, as...