Rudyard Kipling

By: Andrew Lycett

Narrated by: Frederick Davidson

This gripping biography mixes intimate detail with a thorough understanding of the social, intellectual, artistic, and political climate of the time to unravel the intricate story of the misunderstood genius who wrote Kim, the Jungle Books, and the poem "If."

Growing up in both England and India, this descendant of a high-achieving family crossed India's established divide between ruler and subject as he explored the urban underworld and dabbled with opium.

Recently discovered letters shed light on Kipling's most intimate relationships and help explain how India influenced his personal, political, and literary development. Later, suffering from marital stress, the deaths of his son and daughter, and a wavering sanity, only iron self-control and love of the English countryside enable him to transmute his sadness and growing disillusion into his crystalline late short stories, which are gaining new appreciation today.

©1999 Andrew Lycett (P)2000 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Quite Detailed

Very detailed biography of an often overlooked author. It could have been shorter and equally effective.

Beware - Narrator

Frederick Davidson's arrogant voice is hard to take hour after hour. Interesting life story though.

Excellent portrait of a complicated writer

Lycett's biography leaves no doubt about Kipling's strong admiration of and support for British imperialism, but also reveals that as an incisive thinker and brilliant writer he cannot be confined or defined by that label alone. Writers and other noted observers as diverse as T.S. Eliot and Bertolt Brecht have found found reasons to praise him.

Interesting book but poor performance

I really like Lycett's biographies, they're top notch, but the performance and narration and editing is really atrocious. Really a bad fate for a great book.

Fascinating but horrible narration editing

My enjoyment of this otherwise interesting book was seriously marred by the choppy and inexpert editing of the narration. At times phrases were inserted by another voice (or perhaps the same narrator's voice on a different day with different equipment sounding like another voice) and the insertions were done so sloppily sometimes entire words were missing from phrases making me uncertain whether only a word or a page was missing.

Boring

Unlike Kipling himself, this book is very dull. It is packed with every definitive detail and every ancillary detail of his life. No effort to strain details to make the story flow was made. So if you are a researcher you will know everything there is from every part of his life and every scrap of paper on his desk.