The Light that Failed - Softcover

Kipling, Rudyard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1906469199 ISBN 13: 9781906469191

Publisher: Victorian Secrets, 2011

Synopsis

Originally published in 1891, The Light that Failed is Rudyard Kipling’s semi-autobiographical first novel. Critics who had praised him for Plain Tales from the Hills were shocked at the unhappy ending and deviation from his usual style, but none could deny the power of Kipling’s writing.The Light that Failed tells the story of war artist Dick Heldar, his doomed love for childhood sweetheart Maisie, and his descent into blindness. Through Dick, Kipling considers the relationship between Art and Life, espousing his belief that the artist has a duty to paint only what he knows to be true.The reality pursued by Kipling is vividly portrayed in his descriptions of the battlefields of the Sudan and the fleshpits of Port Said. These near-Naturalistic depictions led to comparisons with Zola and show a very different Kipling from the one famous for his Anglo-Indian tales.This edition includes: * critical introduction * biography of Kipling * suggestions for further reading * explanatory footnotes * alternative “happy ending” from the serialised version in Lippincott’s Magazine * contemporary reviews * extracts from The City of Dreadful Night, Fuzzy Wuzzy, Vitaï Lampada, and The Picture of Dorian Gray* Dürer’s Melencolia I

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."

Edition details

• Publisher: Victorian Secrets
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1906469199
• ISBN 13: 9781906469191
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 215
• Editor: Fox Paul