Quest for Kim : in search of Kipling's great game
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Bibliographic Information
Quest for Kim : in search of Kipling's great game
Oxford University Press, 1997
- pbk.
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Description and Table of Contents
Description
This book is for all those who love Kim , that masterpiece of Indian life in which Kipling immortalized the Great Game. Fascinated since childhood by this strange tale of an orphan boy's recruitment into the Indian secret service, Peter Hopkirk here explores the many mysteries surrounding Kipling's great novel. He shows that most of the characters - Kim himself, the old Tibetan lama, Colonel Creighton, Mahbub Ali, Lurgan Sahib and the Babu (agent R17) - were inspired, in whole or in part, by actual individuals. Likewise, its locations are real - all of them familiar to the young Kipling when, more than a century ago, he worked as a reporter on a Lahore newspaper. Although Hopkirk trailed Kim and the lama across India and Pakistan, this is less a travel book than a literary detective story. It is not even essential to have read Kim in order to enjoy it, for Kipling's narrative is carefully sketched in as Hopkirk's quest unfolds. Because its hero is a teenage boy, many people mistakenly believe Kim to be a children's book.
This book is intended for wide popular appeal as an adventure and espionage story; lovers of travel writing, of Hopkirk's writing, and of Kipling's writing; those interested in Indian history and the history of the Great Game.
Table of Contents
Prologue: 'Here begins the Great Game ...'. 1: Who Was Kim?. 2: Enter the Lama. 3: Enter Mahbub Ali. 4: 'The Te-rain'. 5: Searching for the Colonel's Bungalow. 6: The Red Bull. 7: Who Was Colonel Creighton?. 8: School for Spies. 9: The Secret World of Simla. 10: Lurgan Sahib's Vanishing Shop. 11: Jacob Strikes Back. 12: Enter the Russians. 13: Who Was the Babu?. 14: The River of the Arrow. Epilogue: 'When everyone is dead'
by "Nielsen BookData"