Dec 25, 2009

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...