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Kim
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Kim Paperback - 2011

by Rudyard Kipling; Harish Trivedi (Editor); Introduction by Harish Trivedi

Rudyard Kipling's epic rendition of the imperial experience in India is also his greatest long work. Born in India and growing into early manhood, Kim wants to play the "great game" of imperialism. He is also spiritually bound to the lama, an old ascetic priest. As the two men become fired by a quest that takes them across the country, Kim tries to reconcile these opposing impulses. A celebration of their friendship in an often hostile environment, Kim captures at once the opulence of India's exotic landscape and the uneasy presence of the British Raj.

About this book

Rudyard Kipling’s Kim tells the story of Kimball “Kim” O'Hara, an imperial orphan scavenging a hand-to-mouth existence in British India during the late 1890s. The novel functions as a fictionalization of Kipling’s own Indian childhood, but it is also a strong example of the adventure stories that became especially popular in the heyday of the British Empire. Kim has been noted for its detailed portrait of the people, culture, and varied religions of India.

 Kim was serialized in McClure's Magazine from December 1900 to October 1901 as well as in Cassell's Magazine from January to November 1901. It is ranked 34th on The Guardian’s list of the 100 best novels and 78th on Modern Library’s “100 Best” English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2003, the book was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novel.”

Summary

Rudyard Kipling's epic rendition of the imperial experience in India is also his greatest long work. Born in India and growing into early manhood, Kim wants to play the "great game" of imperialism. He is also spiritually bound to the lama, an old ascetic priest. As the two men become fired by a quest that takes them across the country, Kim tries to reconcile these opposing impulses. A celebration of their friendship in an often hostile environment, Kim captures at once the opulence of India's exotic landscape and the uneasy presence of the British Raj.

From the publisher

An epic rendition of the imperial experience in India, one of Kipling's greatest works

A Penguin Classic

Kim, orphaned son of an Irish soldier and a poor white mother, and the lama, an old ascetic priest, are on a quest. Kim was born and raised in India and plays with the slum children as he lives on the streets, but he is white, a sahib, and wants to play the Great Game of Imperialism; while the priest must find redemption from the Wheel of Things. Kim celebrates their friendship and their journeys in a beautiful but hostile environment, capturing the opulence of the exotic landscape and the uneasy presence of the British Raj. Filled with rich description and vivid characters, this beguiling coming of age story is considered Kipling's masterpiece.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

First Edition Identification

Doubleday, Page & Company of New York and Macmillan of London both published Rudyard Kipling’s Kim in October 1901, but the US edition was copyrighted two weeks earlier than the UK edition. Doubleday, Page & Company’s 460-page edition is bound in green ribbed cloth and has 10 illustrations. This first edition has sold for up to $500. Macmillan’s edition is bound in red cloth and has illustrations by HR Millar. Interestingly, this edition has sold for upwards of $25,000 (more than 50-times the value Doubleday, Page & Company’s).

Details

  • Title Kim
  • Author Rudyard Kipling; Harish Trivedi (Editor); Introduction by Harish Trivedi
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Reprint
  • Pages 432
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Group
  • Date 2011-11-29
  • Features Table of Contents
  • ISBN 9780141442372 / 0141442379
  • Weight 0.7 lbs (0.32 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.8 x 5.1 x 1.1 in (19.81 x 12.95 x 2.79 cm)
  • Reading level 940
  • Library of Congress subjects History, Boys
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Media reviews

END

About the author

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was born in Bombay. During his time at the United Services College, he began to write poetry, privately publishing Schoolboy Lyrics in 1881. The following year he started work as a journalist in India, and while there produced a body of work, stories, sketches, and poems --including "Mandalay," "Gunga Din," and "Danny Deever"--which made him an instant literary celebrity when he returned to England in 1889. While living in Vermont with his wife, an American, Kipling wrote The Jungle Books, Just So Stories, and Kim--which became widely regarded as his greatest long work, putting him high among the chronicles of British expansion. Kipling returned to England in 1902, but he continued to travel widely and write, though he never enjoyed the literary esteem of his early years. In 1907, he became the first British writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize.

Jan Montefiore (series editor) is a professor of twentieth-century English literature at the University of Kent. She is the author of Men and Women Writers of the 1930s (1996); Arguments of Heart and Mind: Selected Essays 1977-2000 (2002); Feminism and Poetry (3rd edition, 2004); and Rudyard Kipling (2007).

Harish Trivedi (editor/introducer) is a professor of English at the University of Delhi. He is author of Colonial Transactions: English Literature and India (1993), and has co-edited The Nation across the World: Postcolonial Literary Representations (2007) and Literature and Nation: Britain and India 1800-1990 (2000).

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