The Light That Failed - Softcover

Kipling, Rudyard; Rudyard Kipling

Softcover

ISBN 10: 142184009X ISBN 13: 9781421840093

Publisher: 1st World Library - Literary Society, 2007

Synopsis

'WHAT do you think she'd do if she caught us? We oughtn't to have it, you know, ' said Maisie. 'Beat me, and lock you up in your bedroom, ' Dick answered, without hesitation. 'Have you got the cartridges?' "Yes; they're in my pocket, but they are

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."

Review

Novel by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1890. The book, which includes autobiographical elements, describes the youth and manhood of Dick Heldar and traces his efforts as a war correspondent and artist whose sketches of British battles in the Sudan become popular. When he returns to London, he begins painting his masterpiece, racing against time because a battle wound has caused his eyesight to progressively fail. Kipling wrote two separate endings to The Light That Failed, a happy ending for the version published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in January 1890 and an unhappy ending for the version published in book form a few months later. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

Edition details

• Publisher: 1st World Library - Literary Society
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 142184009X
• ISBN 13: 9781421840093
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 268
• Editor: 1stworld Library