Rudyard Kipling

Kim Rudyard Kipling

Publisher Marketing: He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher-the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that 'fire-breathing dragon', hold the Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror's loot. There was some justification for Kim-he had kicked Lala Dinanath's boy off the trunnions-since the English held the Punjab and Kim was English. Though he was burned black as any native; though he spoke the vernacular by preference, and his mother-tongue in a clipped uncertain sing-song; though he consorted on terms of perfect equality with the small boys of the bazar; Kim was white-a poor white of the very poorest. The half-caste woman who looked after him (she smoked opium, and pretended to keep a second-hand furniture shop by the square where the cheap cabs wait) told the missionaries that she was Kim's mother's sister; but his mother had been nursemaid in a Colonel's family and had married Kimball O'Hara, a young colour-sergeant of the Mavericks, an Irish regiment. He afterwards took a post on the Sind, Punjab, and Delhi Railway, and his Regiment went home without him. Review Citations:

Newsweek 07/13/2009 pg. 48 (EAN 9780140183528, Paperback)

Newsweek 08/09/2010 pg. 55 (EAN 9780140183528, Paperback)

Ingram Paperback Advance 07/01/1999 pg. 16 (EAN 9780812565751, Mass Market Paperbound)

Contributor Bio:  Kipling, Rudyard Nobel prize-winning writer Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, India, but returned with his parents to England at the age of five. Influenced by experiences in both India and England, Kipling's stories celebrate British imperialism and the experience of the British soldier in India. Amongst Kipling's best-known works are The Jungle Book, Just So Stories, and the poems "Mandalay" and "Gunga Din." Kipling was the first English-language writer to receive the Nobel prize for literature (1907) and was amongst the youngest to receive the award. Kipling died in 1936 and is interred in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.