Captains Courageous (THE GREAT CLASSICS LIBRARY)

by Rudyard Kipling

Overview

This 1897 novel follows the adventures of fifteen-year-old Harvey Cheyne Jr., the spoiled son of a railroad tycoon, after he is saved from drowning by a fishing boat in the north Atlantic. The novel originally appeared as a serialization in McClure's, beginning with the November 1896 edition.
Harvey Cheyne is the son of a wealthy railroad magnate and his wife, who are over-indulgent parents in San Diego, California. Washed overboard from a transatlantic steamship and rescued by fishermen off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, the young Harvey Cheyne cannot persuade them to take him quickly to port, nor convince them of his wealth. Disko Troop, captain of the We're Here, offers him a job as part of the crew until they return to port. With no other choice, Harvey accepts....
The book's title comes from the ballad "Mary Ambree", which starts, "When captains courageous, whom death could not daunt". Kipling had previously used the same title for an article on businessmen as the new adventurers, published in The Times of 23 November 1892.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940016163536
Publisher:	Revenant
Publication date:	12/27/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	360 KB
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

The English short-story writer, poet, and novelist Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936) is chiefly remembered for his tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. He is best known for his works of fiction, including The Jungle Book (a collection of stories which includes "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"), Just So Stories (1902) (1894), Kim (1901) (a tale of adventure), many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888);[3][4] and his poems, including "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "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 enduring classics of children's literature; and his best works are said to exhibit "a versatile and luminous narrative gift". He was one of the most popular writers in England, 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 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and to date he remains its youngest recipient.[8] Among other honours, he was sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, all 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: "He [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."