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Plain Tales From The Hills
by Rudyard Kipling
- Used
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
Clarence, New York, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: The Regent Press, 1910. Scares dust jacket. Measuring approximately 7.5" x 5" with 492 numbered pages.
This book is in good plus condition. Moderate bumping to both end of spine. Minor staining to spine and both boards. Minor staining to all edges of textblock. Moderate foxing to front and rear pastedowns and endpapers. Rear hinge cracked. Scarce dust jacket is in good condition. Moderate bumping and chipping to both ends of spine. Moderate staining to spine and both panels. Moderate chipping to all edges of jacket.
The title refers, by way of a pun on "Plain" as the reverse of "Hills", to the deceptively simple narrative style; and to the fact that many of the stories are set in the Hill Station of Simla-the "summer capital of the British Raj" during the hot weather. Not all of the stories are, in fact, about life in "the Hills": Kipling gives sketches of many aspects of life in British India.
Please view the many other rare titles available for purchase at our store. We are always interested in purchasing individual or collections of fine books.
Inventory #(N8-19).
This book is in good plus condition. Moderate bumping to both end of spine. Minor staining to spine and both boards. Minor staining to all edges of textblock. Moderate foxing to front and rear pastedowns and endpapers. Rear hinge cracked. Scarce dust jacket is in good condition. Moderate bumping and chipping to both ends of spine. Moderate staining to spine and both panels. Moderate chipping to all edges of jacket.
The title refers, by way of a pun on "Plain" as the reverse of "Hills", to the deceptively simple narrative style; and to the fact that many of the stories are set in the Hill Station of Simla-the "summer capital of the British Raj" during the hot weather. Not all of the stories are, in fact, about life in "the Hills": Kipling gives sketches of many aspects of life in British India.
Please view the many other rare titles available for purchase at our store. We are always interested in purchasing individual or collections of fine books.
Inventory #(N8-19).
Synopsis
Originally written for the Lahore Civil and Military Gazette, the stories were intended for a provincial readership familiar with the pleasures and miseries of colonial life. For the subsequent English edition, Kipling revised the tales so as to recreate as vividly as possible the sights and smells of India for those at home. Yet far from being a celebration of Empire, Kipling's stories tell of 'heat and bewilderment and wasted effort and broken faith'. He writes brilliantly and hauntingly about the barriers between the races, the classes and the sexes; and about innocence, not transformed into experience but implacably crushed.
Reviews
On Jul 9 2011, Feeney said:
Rudyard Kipling was 32 when his first collection of short stories, PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS, was published in 1888. He had first issued 28 of them in the pages of his Anglo-Indian employer, The Civil and Military Gazette of Lahore, India (1886-7). *** The 40 short stories are of high quality and soon won for the young author a readership in India, Britain and America that propelled him to the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. Most of the characters displayed are British (including Irish) men, women and children. The men are often young Lieutenants (Subalterns) or enlisted men just assigned to a British or Native regiment in Queen Victoria's India. Less often the men are in business or are civil servants, married or not, assigned to running a district of several hundred thousand natives or advising the rulers of Princely States. *** Romance is a major theme. Thus the tale, "The Strength of a Likeness," begins: "Next to a requited attachment, one of the most convenient things that a young man can carry about with him at the beginning of his career, is an unrequited attachment. It makes him feel important and businesslike, and blase, and cynical." A couple of pages later: 'Open and obvious devotion from any sort of man is always pleasant to any sort of woman." *** From April to October things are so hot in India's Plains that the officers and civilians send their womenfolk and children to cool Hill Stations at 6,000 feet or higher. Thus, Simla, in the Himalyan foothills, became the summer capital of British India. Kipling's newspaper sent him there to file reports. And he observed the going ons of Viceroys, Commanders in Chief, older women who delighted in wrapping subalterns around their fingers and natives interacting with their white rulers. *** PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS contain more than one excellent ghost story, premonitions of death, the trials of boredom, ill health (especially the threat of cholera and typhoid), career frustrations, barely understood relations with the Hindus and Muslims being ruled and miitary and spying adventures in Burma and Afghanistan. *** In my own reading experience and judgment, a dozen or more of the PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS deserve appearing in any anthology of the world's finest short stories. Read a few and see if you agree! -OOO-
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Details
- Bookseller
- Ernestoic Books
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 4844
- Title
- Plain Tales From The Hills
- Author
- Rudyard Kipling
- Book Condition
- Used
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Publisher
- The Regent Press
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1910
Terms of Sale
Ernestoic Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Ernestoic Books
Biblio member since 2023
Clarence, New York
About Ernestoic Books
Ernestoic Books, where you can find the most sought after Modern First Editions. As our name suggests, Ernest Hemingway is our specialty and our passion. We guarantee the condition of every book we sell. Returns may be made within 14 days of receipt for any reason. We are always interested in purchasing individual or collections of fine books.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
- Chipping
- A defect in which small pieces are missing from the edges; fraying or small pieces of paper missing the edge of a paperback, or...
- Cracked
- In reference to a hinge or a book's binding, means that the glue which holds the opposing leaves has allowed them to separate,...
- Hinge
- The portion of the book closest to the spine that allows the book to be opened and closed.
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
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