Includes bibliographical references (pages 304-309) and index.

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"For readers studying Red Badge for the first time, a quartet of introductory essays provide valuable background. Matthew J. Bolton examines how the culture of the 1890's--with its clashes over immigration, industrialization, poverty, and military policy--influenced Crane and, in another essay, how Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism can improve our understanding of the novel. Patrick K. Dooley offers a comprehensive survey of the veritable ocean of Red Badge criticism, and Stanley B. Greenfield draws on two of Crane's short stories to resolve some of the critical issues that have long plagued scholars of Red Badge. Continuing the discussion are a variety of classic and contemporary essays on the novel. Author and poet James M. Cox provides a comprehensive overview of the novel and praises it as "one of the great war novels of world literature." Harold R. Hungerford turns to Civil War history to establish the battle Crane on which modeled the action of his story. Robert C. Albrecht analyzes Crane's use of narrative point of view to show how it supports Crane's concept of reality. Thomas L. Kent takes up Crane's stance of epistemological uncertainty, and Eric Carl Link likewise examines his subjectivism. Ben Satterfield argues that, despite some critics' qualms, the novel is a unified, coherent work of art that projects a humanistic vision, and Donald Pizer, in the course of an examination of the textual controversies surrounding the novel, agrees with Satterfield that it is a unified and coherent work. Jacqueline Tavernier-Courbin examines the use of humor and fallacious reasoning in the novel. James W. Tuttleton and James Trammell Cox analyze Crane's imagery, and William B. Dillingham pieces together Crane's concept of courage and heroism. Robert M. Rechnitz and Harold Kaplan then weigh in on two perennial questions--whether Henry Fleming matures over the course of the novel and the meaning of the novel's ending--and Verner D. Mitchell offers a highly innovative reading of race and gender in the work. Also included in this volume are a brief biography of Crane's life, a celebration of Crane's achievement by Paris Review contributor Barry Harbaugh, a chronology of Crane's life, and a detailed bibliography for readers wishing to study this classic American novel in greater depth."--From publisher description.

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