The Red Badge Of Courage

War is hell. War is glory. War is confusion. War is a young man running around a field wondering why everyone is shouting and occasionally shooting at him. The Red Badge of Courage manages to be all of these things at once, which is quite impressive for a book written by Stephen Crane, who at the time had never actually been in a battle himself. Apparently imagination — plus a keen sense of human psychology — can go a very long way.

First published in 1895, the novel quickly became one of the most famous works about the American Civil War, although it is not so much about tactics or generals or the exciting bits involving flags and bugles. Instead, it focuses on a young soldier who spends most of the story wrestling with the much more universal question: am I brave, or am I about to run away very quickly? The result is less a traditional war epic and more an internal monologue conducted while cannonballs are flying about in the background.

This particular copy comes from the handsome little Clear-Type Press “Library of Classics” series issued by William Collins Sons & Co., here under the Collins Clear-Type Press name. These editions were designed to be compact, readable, and slightly dignified in appearance — the literary equivalent of a pocket watch: small, respectable, and intended to accompany the owner through the minor adventures of daily life (though perhaps not actual nineteenth-century battlefield manoeuvres).

Dating Collins classics is something of a bibliographic parlour game, but the “London and Glasgow” imprint together with the style of binding places this edition comfortably somewhere around c.1928–1935, when Collins was producing thousands of these tidy little volumes for readers who liked their literature portable and their typography reassuringly clear.

Condition-wise, the book has lived a reasonably honest life. The first blank title page once detached itself and wandered off slightly from the binding many years ago, presumably seeking independence. It has now been carefully returned to its rightful position with a fresh paper hinge and behaves perfectly well again, though the page shows some historic dog-earing from its brief period of freedom. The rest of the binding and text block remain in very respectable condition for a book approaching a century old.

In short, this is a neat and characterful Collins pocket classic containing one of the most influential war novels ever written — proof that courage, fear, confusion and literature all fit rather comfortably into a small red book.

A quietly distinguished survivor from the early twentieth century, now ready to march once more into the hands of a reader — preferably one who appreciates both great literature and the occasional repaired hinge.

Keep browsing: See more Literary Classics books Other books by Stephen Crane