Audiobook · read by volunteers
Kim
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)
Read by Adrian Praetzellis · 23 chapters · 13 h 08
About the book
Kim is an orphan of the streets of Lahore, the son of an Irish soldier, who has grown up as a street-wise boy among the people of India. He is quick, cheerful and entirely at ease in many languages and communities, which makes him exactly the kind of person who can be useful in the secret rivalry known as the Great Game, the contest between Britain and Russia for influence in Asia. Rudyard Kipling follows Kim as he joins an old Tibetan lama on a search and is drawn into the world of espionage. The India it describes is rich with colour and sound. Twenty-three recordings, about thirteen hours, in a classic tale of adventure and friendship.
Introduction
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was an English writer, born in India, who became one of the best-known authors of his era. Kim, published in 1901, is often regarded as his finest novel. It is an adventure set in British India that tells the story of a street-wise Anglo-Indian boy who becomes involved in the Great Game, the competition between Britain and Russia for control over Asia.
The book combines a story of espionage with a journey. Kim travels with a Tibetan lama who is seeking spiritual release, and the pair pass through a great variety of places and meet a great variety of people. Kipling had a gift for reproducing the sights, sounds and speech of India, and the novel is full of closely observed detail. The relationship between Kim and the lama is at the heart of the story and gives it much of its warmth.
Listeners should bear in mind that Kim was written at the height of the British Empire and embodies many of its assumptions. It can be read as an exciting adventure and also as a document of the colonial attitudes of its time.
The recording is read by a LibriVox volunteer and has twenty-three files, lasting about thirteen hours. The chapters are in parts, which makes it easy to listen in stages. It is a good choice for fans of classic adventure and of historical novels set in Asia.
Public domain
Rudyard Kipling died in 1936: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text