Born in India, Rudyard Kipling is renowned for his varied exciting tales of the sub-continent. Less well-known is the Nobel laureate’s attachment to the United States and especially to Vermont, where he lived (in Brattleboro) for over four years. Here he made the acquaintance of Dr. James Conland who had fished with the Grand Banks fleet as a youth. Dr. Conland’s nautical reminiscences sparked Kipling’s creative mind and, “rejoicing to escape from the dread respectability of our little town” the two men ran off to “the shore front, and to the old T-wharf of Boston Harbour, and to queer meals in sailors’ eating-houses… we boarded every craft that looked as if she might be useful, and we delighted ourselves to the limit of delight.”
Captains Courageous is the fruit of Kipling’s Boston escapade. It charts the tale of Harvey Cheyne, a rich, spoilt 15 year-old, who falls from an ocean-going liner, is rescued by the fishing boat We’re Here - and is forced to spend the next three months with the crew, earning his living as a deck-hand among the huge waves and treacherous currents of the Grand Banks. The experience is the making of Harvey, transforming the pampered, boastful boy into a self-reliant young man who knows the value - and the responsibilities - of friendship and honest work. A unique book of American adventure from the archetypal Indian writer.
