The Red Badge of Courage | Literary Criticism & Book Review

The Red Badge of Courage Critical Overview

After being serialized in magazines, The Red Badge of Courage was finally published in book form in the fall of 1895 to favorable reviews. George Wyndham, writing in the New Review, stated, "Mr. Crane has surely contrived a masterpiece." Stephen Crane's literary reputation was firmly established, and the twenty-four-year-old author's imaginative genius was hailed by critics and readers here and in England. As his letters of late 1895 and early 1896 suggest, Stephen Crane's literary situation was somewhat problematic, paradoxically because of the immense success of The Red Badge of Courage. It created something of a sensation in late 1895, and before the end of that year, Crane was a famous man, an international celebrity known on both sides of the Atlantic for his brilliant and uncompromisingly realistic portrayal of war. But he also spent money and suffered some notoriety as a bohemian and social radical. When the book was...
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