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The Red Badge of Courage

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What to expect

In Henry Flemming, Stephen Crane creates a great and realistic study of the mind of an inexperienced soldier trapped in the fury and turmoil of war. Flemming dashes into battle, at first tormented by fear, then bolstered with courage in time for the final confrontation.

Although the exact battle is never identified, Crane based this story of a soldier’s experiences during the American Civil War on the 1863 Battle of Chancellorsville. Many veterans, both Union and Confederate, praised the book’s accurate representation of war, and critics consider its stylistic strength the mark of a literary classic.

Following its initial appearance in serial form, Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage was published as a complete work in 1895 and quickly became the benchmark for modern anti-war literature.

Critics Review

“There was no real literature of our Civil War…until Stephen Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage.”

Ernest Hemingway

“Anthony Heald does a superb job…His energetic pacing and varied intonations bring out the drama and the immediacy of battle…People who have relegated this novel to the tenth grade should experience Heald’s reading. He brings Crane to life.”

AudioFile

“Crane’s realistic recounting of a young man’s first experience with war is a storyteller’s dream and Heald’s fully voiced presentation is without peer. His crusty voice has the twang of a Midwestern farm boy and rises and falls with the appropriate emotion of the scene…This audiobook belongs in every school, public, and personal library.”

Kliatt

“One should be forever slow in charging an author with genius, but it must be confessed that The Red Badge of Courage is open to the suspicion of having greater power and originality that can be girdled by the name of talent.”

New York Press
Author Stephen Crane
Narrator Anthony Heald
Duration 4 hours and 41 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781481544610
Format Audiobook
Publisher Blackstone Publishing
Genre Classic fiction, War, combat and military adventure fiction
Availability AU, GB, IE, US

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