A Kipling Pageant

This copy of A Kipling Pageant is a HB without a DJ.  It was published by The Literary Guild in 1935.  Condition: Good--pages show slight handling; pages are just starting to tan a bit on the edges; binding tight; last name on the front end page; tanning inside the covers along the spine (reaction to the glue); light soiling on the covers; spine hinge is a little wiggly; a little rubbing wear on the guilded letters on the spine.  There are a few pages with black-and-white illustrations, but most of the book is text.  936 pages.

Here is a customer review on this book:

This is probably the best single-volume collection of Kipling's work. The Viking Portable Library collection excludes some of his most important stories and poems. This volume has a better selection of his early work -- although Kipling was so prolific that a second large volume of his best could easily be compiled. This book however excludes some his cryptic and difficult later stories such as "Dayspring Mishandled" which were little noted in their day.

The master himself wrote the introduction to "A Kipling Pageant" in 1935 not long before his death and the essay is a priceless example of Kipling's imagination at work. Among the essential reading in this book I would list the following stories: Lispeth, The Man Who Would Be King, Without Benefit of Clergy, Mowgli's Brothers, Rikki-tikki-tavi" and "The Church That Was at Antioch." The best poems include "If, Recessional, Mandalay, Gunga Din," and "Fuzzy Wuzzy." An essay, "An Interview with Mark Twain" is excellent. However, don't bother to read the novel included in this book, "A Light that Failed" unless you're really addicted to Kipling. Kipling was not a novelist -- except for "Kim" which is wonderfully atmospheric, although uneven.

Kipling got a bad rap as a racist and conservative among his contemporaries. Actually, he had more sympathy with the subjects of British Imperialism than did many of his critics -- and vastly more understanding. What made Kipling great as an artist was an imagination so expansive that he could imagine himself as the ruler of a country in the future, the engine of a ship, a boy lost in the jungle, a Cockney soldier, an early Christian missionary, or an old woman looking back on life.

Kipling and Somerset Maugham in my opinion are the best writers of short stories in English. Kipling, in addition, is one of the most quotable of poets. "On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin'-fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!"

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