 For the remainder of Crane's short career (he died from tuberculosis at the age of 28), "The Red Badge of Courage" served as the standard against which the rest of his works were compared.Appleton republished the novel again in 1917, shortly after the US entered World War I, reissuing it three additional times that same year.Since the resurgence of Crane's popularity in the 1920s, "The Red Badge of Courage" has been deemed a major American text and Crane's most important work.