One of the greatest works of American literature, <i>The Red Badge of Courage</i> gazes fearlessly into the bright hell of war through the eyes of one young soldier, the reluctant Henry Fleming. Written by Stephen Crane at the age of twenty-one, the novel imagines the Civil War's terror and loss with an unblinking vision so modern and revolutionary that, upon publication, critics hailed it as a work of literary genius. Ernest Hemingway declared, &quot;There was no real literature of our Civil War . . . until Stephen Crane wrote <i>The Red Badge of Courage.&quot;</i> <br><br>This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition includes the short story &quot;The Veteran,&quot; Crane's tale of an aged Civil War soldier looking back at his past.