The Light That Failed - Softcover

Kipling, Rudyard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1589630653 ISBN 13: 9781589630659

Publisher: Fredonia Books (NL), 2001

Synopsis

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was not yet 25 when he burst onto the literary scene in London, where his stories of Anglo-Indian life made him an instant celebrity. He won the Nobel Prize in 1907. Born in India in 1865 to an upper-class military family, he spent his early years in Britain and India and achieved his initial success as a reporter in India. In 1888 he published these short stories: Soldiers Three, The Story of the Gadsbys, In Black and White, Under the Deodars, The Phantom Rickshaw and Wee Willie Winkie. The Light that Failed and The City of Dreadful Night were written by him in 1890.

He traveled widely and visited the U.S. a number of times, eventually building a house in Vermont. A restless wanderer, he ultimately settled in Sussex, only to have his world tumble into ruins with the death of his son in World War I.

Kipling is revered for his adult and children's stories and poems, but much of his life and writing is largely unknown in the United States. (Because he believed, and wrote, that Americans were ignorant provincials, his political views were not appreciated in the states.) Witty, profound, wildly funny, acerbic and occasionally savage, Rudyard Kipling's writings continue to delight readers of all ages.

About this title

About the Author:

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888). His poems include "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If—" (1910). He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story; his children's books are classics of children's literature; and one critic described his work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift". Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry James said: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known." In 1907, at the age of 42, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, both of which he declined. Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed according to the political and social climate of the age and the resulting contrasting views about him continued for much of the 20th century. George Orwell called him a "prophet of British imperialism". Literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote: "[Kipling] is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled. But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognised as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with."

About this edition

• Publisher: Fredonia Books (NL)
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1589630653
• ISBN 13: 9781589630659
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 372