The Long Recessional

Download or read book The Long Recessional written by David Gilmour and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2002 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " Readable and reliable . . . [Gilmour' s] assessment of the political background of Kipling' s writings is exemplary." -- Earl L. Dachslager, "Houston Chronicle" David Gilmour' s superbly nuanced biography of Rudyard Kipling, now available in paperback, is the first to show how the great writer' s life and work mirrored the trajectory of the British Empire, from its zenith to its final decades. His great poem " Recessional" celebrated Queen Victoria' s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 and his last poems warned of the dangers of Nazism, while Kipling himself, an icon of the empire, was transformed from an apostle of success to a prophet of national decline. As Gilmour makes clear, Kipling' s mysterious and enduring works deeply influenced the way his readers saw both themselves and the British Empire, and they continue to challenge our own generation.