Kim

by Rudyard Kipling, Harish Trivedi (Editor), Harish Trivedi (Introduction), Jan Montefiore (Editor)

Overview

Kim (1901) is Rudyard Kipling's story of an orphan born in colonial India and torn between love for his native India and the demands of Imperial loyalty to his Irish-English heritage and to the British Secret Service. Long recognized as Kipling's finest work, Kim was a key factor in his winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. Our text is the 1901 first English edition, fully annotated for undergraduate readers and accompanied by maps of India and the Grand Trunk Road. "Backgrounds" collects selections from Kipling's autobiography, letters, short stories, and poems; four contemporary assessments, including that of the Nobel Prize Committee; an excerpt from Charles Carrington's biography of Kipling; and contextual essays by Blair Kling and Ann Parry. The thirteen interpretive essays in "Criticism" explore the novel's central themes and suggest the range of Kipling criticism from the 1950s to the present. Noel Annan, Irving Howe, Edward Said, Ian Baucom, A. Michael Matin, John A. McClure, Michael Hollington, Parama Roy, Sara Suleri, Patrick Williams, Suvir Kaul, Mark Kinkead-Weekes, and Zohreh T. Sullivan provide their varied perspectives. A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are also included.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780141442372
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/29/2011
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	330,591
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

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 Lyricsin 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 is a professor of 20th 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 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).

Read an Excerpt

Chapter I
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Kim"
by .
Copyright © 2011 Rudyard Kipling.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

	Introduction	vii
	Chronology of Charles Dickens's Life and Work	xv
	Historical Context of Great Expectations	xvii
	Great Expectations	1
	The Original Ending of Great Expectations	599
	Notes	601
	Interpretive Notes	614
	Critical Excerpts	621
	Questions for Discussion	631
	Suggestions for the Interested Reader	633

Reading Group Guide

1. For decades many critics have shown great disdain for Kipling, equating his work with the idea that British imperialism was a righteous and justified act. Is this assessment fair? Was Kipling simply writing what he knew or structuring his literature on his political beliefs?

2. As Kim moves from the intellectual world of school to the spiritual world he finds with the lama later in the story, he continually questions who he is. Is this questioning simply that of a young orphan or does it hint at larger political unease?

3. What is the purpose of the prophecy Kim brings to the soldiers?

4. Is it surprising, given Kim’s spirituality, that he joins the Secret Service? How does he reconcile his two separate lives?

5. In a 1943 essay, critic Edmund Wilson referred to the ending of Kim as a “betrayal” of the relationship of the old man and the young Kim, which made the book more literary than a mere adventure story. Do you agree with this? Why or why not?

6. In her article “Adolescence, Imperialism, and Identity in Kim and Pegasus in Flight,” Nicole Didicher says, “Adults writing for adolescents inevitably use imperialist discourse to influence their readers’ maturation. Kipling . . . uses an existing imperialist society to present the protagonist’s establishment of his psychosocial identity.” Do you agree that all adult writers “inevitably” use imperialist discourse to reach their adolescent audiences? Did Kipling use imperialist India because that is what he knew, or was he simply entertaining a young audience?

Editorial Reviews

A work of positive genius, as radiant all over with intellectual light as the sky of a frosty night with stars.”
—The Atlantic Monthly

From the Publisher

"Máire ní Fhlathúin's new edition of Kim is a welcome event. The substantial and scholarly, yet accessible, introduction contextualises the novel in important new ways. This is complemented by a diverse range of supplementary material, which allows the reader to appreciate more clearly some of the debates, texts, and contexts by which Kipling was influenced as he wrote his masterpiece. This is an edition that will appeal alike to the student, scholar, and general reader."

Bart Moore-Gilbert Goldsmiths College

Enchanting music, ideal for an exotic Indian setting, is the perfect accompaniment to this marvelous tale. Narrator Madhav Sharma dazzles—whether he’s using English, Irish, or various melodious Indian accents, along with the style of an old-fashioned storyteller. Kim sounds just like the lively, gutsy, intelligent survivor he is. Sharma is engaging and funny when he quotes Kim, particularly when Kim admits that he quickly learned to avoid white men and missionaries. In addition to telling an excellent story, audio promotes this dynamic country and its people, just as Kipling intended. S.G.B. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2015 - AudioFile