Showing results for "Kipling" in Literary Fiction

Set in the days of the British Raj, Kipling's finest novel is the exciting and touching tale of an Irish orphan-boy who has lived free in the streets of Lahore before setting out, with a Tibetan Lama, on a spiritual quest. Kim later enrols in the Indian Service and simultaneously embarks on an espionage mission of supreme importance.

This story was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on September 26th 1884, when Kipling was not yet nineteen, and collected in Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of this collection. It was his first short story to be published - a tour de force that set a standard which - with a few lapses - he maintained for the rest of his life. The tale is presented as a monologue by Gabral Misquitta, a half-caste opium addict, six weeks before his death.

Young Rudyard Kipling, privileged son of a well connected British family, lives a life of luxury in Bombay. But when he is separated from his family and sent to live in a desolate foster home at the age of six, he develops ideas and attitudes that shape his entire worldview.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. Kipling in these more modern times is increasingly seen as an apologist for the bad ways of evil empires. It’s a simplistic analysis and avoids much of his literary talent that is entertaining, scary and downright brilliant storytelling whatever the background it is based on or comes from.

Kipling, a Nobel Prize-winner, tells the story of two Englishmen, with 20 rifles and two donkeys, setting off from India into the wild unknown to win a kingdom. Added to the adventure is a surprise ending.

Rudyard Kipling's classic adventure story, Kim, tells the tale of an Irish soldier's orphan son, who roams the back alleys and bazaars of British-ruled India. The young urchin learns the rules and language of the dirty streets, until he discovers his father's old army regiment. Suddenly, Kim abandons his former life and native customs, buys expensive European clothing, and begins a new career as a secret agent. Both an exciting adventure and a detailed look at a spy's inner conflicts, Kim is one of Kipling's most important and popular novels.

Based on Kipling's own adolescent experiences, Stalky and Co. is a cunning story of mischievous 19th century British schoolboys attempting scholastic mutiny. The faculty and headmaster of a boys' private school repeatedly pursue a trio of poetic pranksters, "Stalky", "Beetle", and "Turkey", as they wage war on fellow students and the "establishment" with unwavering energy and creativity.

Kimball O'Hara is an Irish orphan, but he runs free in the streets of India. As a boy, he shows self-reliance and resourcefulness, running errands for Mahbub Ali, who works for the British Secret Service. Kim also meets a Tibetan lama who is on a quest to be freed from the Wheel of Life and becomes his disciple. Together they have wonderful adventures on the exotically colorful Grand Trunk Road through the Indian countryside.

With war correspondents in the Sudan, Dick Heldar, a gifted painter, learns to perfect his art by depicting battle scenes. Years later, an old war wound brings the onset of blindness. While completing his final masterpiece, he struggles to regain control of his life and his love for his childhood sweetheart.

Dick Heldar is a war correspondent and an artist, well known for the drawings he sends home to the London papers from wars in exotic places like Sudan. When he returns to London, he attempts to make a career for himself as a serious artist and re-encounters his childhood sweetheart, Maisie. He then learns that a minor problem with his eyes is actually the onset of an incurable blindness, the result of a head injury during the war.

In a remote part of 19th-century Afghanistan, two British adventurers pursue their ambition to rule an empire. Using betrayal, threats, and guns, they win the respect of a primitive tribe and become worshipped as gods until one day they draw blood, and the game is up. "The Man Who Would Be King" is an action-packed tale about the pitfalls of colonialism and the temptations and evils of power.

There's a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield, And the ricks stand gray to the sun, Singing: -- "Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover, And your English summer's done.

Rudyard Kipling's Kim is the story of Kimball O'Hara, the orphaned son of an Irish soldier, who spends his childhood as a vagabond in Lahore. With an old Tibetan lama, he travels through India, enthralled by the "roaring whirl" of the landscape and cities of richly colored bazaars and immense diversity of people. The novel is a masterpiece of careful organization and skillfully manipulated narrative techniques.

When young little Mowgli's parents are run out of their camp by a formidable Bengal tiger, the toddler scampers to safety alone in the cave of a Seeonee wolf pack. Thereafter forest animals succor Mowgli, and through his wits and their kindness, he reaches adulthood.

Harvey Cheyne is the pampered son of a multimillionaire who falls off an ocean liner and is rescued by a small fishing boat. After being punched in the nose by the captain of the vessel for smart-mouthing him, Harvey quickly learns respect, toughness, and gratitude. He steps up from self-centeredness into the difficult but fulfilling realm of self-reliance and unselfishness.

Almost always when we think of Ghost Stories, we first think of those written by the Victorians. If you want a really good ghost story to bring that edge of chill, that foreboding of dread, that feeling that in an empty house we are not quite alone and that sometimes the sharp, sheer shock of what just happened is upon us then look no further than ‘The Victorian Ghost Story’ for your reading and listening pleasure.

An intimate, evocative, often funny, and always vital portrait of India at the peak of the British Raj. Written at the age of 22, they immediately show Kipling's natural and prodigious talent. Timeless, they can be listened to forever.

The Jungle Book (1894) is a collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, who is raised in the jungle by wolves. The stories are set in a forest in India; one place mentioned repeatedly is "Seonee" (Seoni), in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. A major theme in the book is abandonment followed by fostering, as in the life of Mowgli, echoing Kipling's own childhood.

Rudyard Kipling's thrilling science fiction novella follows the exploits of an intercontinental mail dirigible battling foul weather. Meanwhile, a planet-wide Aerial Board of Control enforces a rigid system of command and control in the skies and in world affairs, too.

An English family have just moved to a house in India. They find Rikki-Tikki-Tavi the mongoose flooded out of his burrow. A pair of large cobras, Nag and Nagaina, attempt unsuccessfully to kill him. He hears the cobras plotting to kill the father in the house, and attacks Nag in the bathroom. The sound of the fight attracts the father, who shoots Nag. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi destroys Nagaina's eggs and chases her into her "rat-hole" where he kills her too.