The Man Who Would Be King: and Other Stories (Thrift Editions) - Softcover

Kipling, Rudyard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486280519 ISBN 13: 9780486280516

Publisher: Dover Publications Inc, 2000

Synopsis

Winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Kipling drew upon his experiences in Anglo-Indian society for much of his fiction. This volume includes 5 of the author's best early stories: "The Phantom Rickshaw," "Wee Willie Winkie," "Without Benefit of Clergy," "The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes" and the title selection.

About this title

Review:

"Small wonders"
--"Time Out London"
"I wanted them all, even those I'd already read."
--Ron Rosenbaum, "The New York Observer"

Sean Barrett's reading goes beyond narration into performance in The Man Who Would Be King, a novella in Conradian vein. He begins gently enough as the Indian civil servant who recounts his first meeting with Peachey Carnehan and Daniel Dravot, 'gentlemen at large', who are planning to carve out a kingdom for themselves in a remote corner of Afghanistan. Barrett then creates the colourful personalities of the conniving Peachey and the bombastic, red-bearded Daniel before they disappear up country. Four years later Peachey reappears, a 'rag-wrapped, whining cripple', and tells the story of their meteoric rise and even faster fall. Kipling's storytelling and Barrett's reading is so immediate that you feel he's actually in the fanatically idolatrous mountain kingdom, living the perils of the protagonists. Other macabre stories in the collection include The Phantom Rickshaw, The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes and The Mark of the Beast. --- Christina Hardyment, The Times

"I wanted them all, even those I'd already read."
Ron Rosenbaum, "The New York Observer"
"Small wonders."
"Time Out London"
"""[F]irst-rate astutely selected and attractively packaged indisputably great works."
Adam Begley, "The New York Observer"
"I ve always been haunted by Bartleby, the proto-slacker. But it s the handsomely minimalist cover of the Melville House edition that gets me here, one of many in the small publisher s fine 'Art of the Novella' series."
"The New Yorker"
"The Art of the Novella series is sort of an anti-Kindle. What these singular, distinctive titles celebrate is book-ness. They're slim enough to be portable but showy enough to be conspicuously consumed tiny little objects that demand to be loved for the commodities they are."
KQED (NPR San Francisco)
"Some like it short, and if you're one of them, Melville House, an independent publisher based in Brooklyn, has a line of books for you... elegant-looking paperback editions ...a good read in a small package."
" ---The Wall Street Journal

About the Author:

Nobel Laureate Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) is best remembered for children's tales such as The Jungle Book as well as his poetry and stories about British soldiers in India, which include "Gunga Din" and The Man Who Would Be King. Kipling was enormously popular at the turn of the 20th century but his reputation declined with the change in attitude toward British imperialism. In recent years Kipling's works have found new acclaim as a vibrant source of literary and cultural history.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dover Publications Inc
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0486280519
• ISBN 13: 9780486280516
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128