First edition, second issue, of the most influential piece of war fiction in American literature, with the armorial engraved bookplate of Theodore Roosevelt on the front pastedown, and Roosevelt's clipped signature additionally tipped onto the front free endpaper.
Very good.
Price: $12,500.00
"THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE redefined American war fiction and has become the touchstone against which other war novels are judged." – Biographer Paul Sorrentino
The publication of RED BADGE made Crane an instant celebrity. As a journalist, editors "'who would not have wiped their old shoes on him before then' suddenly wanted to meet him" (Sorrentino 149). In the year of the book's publication, long before he became the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt was the New York City Police Commissioner. In this role he would meet Stephen Crane, whose book he enjoyed so much that he would send the author a congratulatory letter and later ask him to sign a copy of the book. (That copy is now housed in the Houghton Library, Harvard.) Roosevelt was a famously voracious reader and bibliophile who kept multiple libraries. As police commissioner, Roosevelt met with Crane a few times, once for an interview and another time for dinner along with Jacob Riis. RED BADGE was one of Roosevelt's favorites until a local trial on police brutality put him at odds with Crane. When Crane wrote a dispatch criticizing the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War, he sounded the death knell of their short friendship. A terrific association copy between two Gilded Age men who changed American letters and history.
Read more: Sorrentino, Stephen Crane: A Life of Fire.
New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1895. Full title: The red badge of courage: an episode of the American Civil War. Octavo. 7.25'' x 4.75''. Original full tan cloth lettered in red, black, and gilt with red-stamped ornaments. Brown coated endpapers. Top edge gilt. Publisher's catalogue at rear. 233, [1], [4] pages. Engraved bookplate of Theodore Roosevelt bearing his motto, "Qui plantavit curabit," on front pastedown; clipped signature of Roosevelt additionally tipped onto front endpaper. Housed in custom quarter blue gilt-lettered goatskin slipcase and blue cloth chemise. Slight spine lean, some spotting to top edge of front board, typical light soiling to cloth, spine a bit toned: interior clean and fresh.
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