2 - Getting Used to the “Original Form” of The Red Badge of Courage

Summary

Since 1975 I have been campaigning to gain readers for The Red Badge of Courage in the form Crane wrote it, as nearly as that can be reconstructed, rather than the form that was published in 1895. The first chores were to edit the text, study it, celebrate it, and get it into print. During the early phases of the campaign, I focused mainly on the intellectual honesty and aesthetic rewards awaiting anyone who read the book as Crane wrote it, and my then-student Henry Binder, after accounting for the 1895 truncations, also concentrated his energies on reading the book as Crane wrote it. We were, as we said, celebrating an unknown masterpiece. Others joined in the celebration – witness Lee Mitchell's choice of text for citations in this volume. Some have refused to celebrate, however, and it is these reluctant, skeptical souls whom I want to persuade in this essay, which is not a new celebration but an attempt – really, the first detailed attempt – to locate The Red Badge of Courage precisely in Crane's literary career during the years 1892–6 (if one can apply the term “career” to anything so stymied) and to focus sharply upon the precise nature of the war book that he worked on, completed, and then lived with for many months afterward. I want to back away from the controversy over the reconstructed text so that I can help us all get used to thinking of the original form of The Red Badge of Courage.