Quest for "Kim": In Search of Kipling's Great Game

by PeterHopkirk (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1997

  $3.29

  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.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1996

  $3.29

• New

  Paperback
  2006

  $13.19

  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 retraces Kim's footsteps across Kipling's India to see how much of it remains. To attempt this with a fictional hero would normally be pointless. But Kim is different. For much of this Great Game classic was inspired by actual people and places, thus blurring the line between the real and the imaginary. Less a travel book than a literary detective story, this is the intriguing story of Peter Hopkirk's quest for Kim and a host of other shadowy figures.