The Light That Failed is the first novel by the Nobel Prize-winning English author Rudyard Kipling, first published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in January 1891. Most of the novel is set in London, but many important events throughout the story occur in Sudan and Port Said. It follows the life of Dick Heldar, an artist and painter who goes blind, and his unrequited love for his childhood playmate, Maisie.
Kipling wrote the novel when he was 26 years old, and it is semi-autobiographical, being based upon his own unrequited love for Florence Garrard. Though it was poorly received by critics, the novel has managed to remain in print for over a century. It was also adapted into a play, two silent films and a drama film.
Background
By the time Kipling returned to England in 1889, he was well on his way to literary fame due to his successful short stories. However, as a novel was expected from him, he began to write The Light That Failed on a very short deadline of three months. The novel's inspiration was his failed relationship with Florence Garrard, whom he had first met when he was boarding with his sister in Southsea.[1]
After returning to India to work as a reporter, Kipling remained in touch with Garrard through correspondence. She terminated their relationship after two years, leaving Kipling devastated, as he had believed that they were engaged.[2] He met her again in 1890 in London and attempted to reignite their relationship. He also visited her in Paris where she was studying in the Académie Julian. It is not known what happened between them, but he was never to see Garrard again.[1]
Although most of the novel is set in London, the military campaigns are set in Sudan and Egypt, especially in Port Said and Suakin. The Mahdist War serves as a background to Dick's first encounter with a war correspondent named Torpenhow and his death during the reconquest.[3]
Plot summary
The story begins with Dick and Maisie as orphan children in a seaside boarding house under the care of Mrs. Jennet (a sadist drawn from Kipling's own childhood experience with a Mrs. Holloway). Dick confesses his infatuation with Maisie but she informs him that she will soon be leaving to complete her education.
Years later, Dick is working as a painter and artist among the British armed forces in Sudan. He meets a war correspondent named Torpenhow who, witnessing his skill, arranges for Dick to be hired by the syndicate that he works for. The two men quickly strike up a friendship and help each other in their respective trades. Dick is later injured by a sword-cut to the head and spends a night in delirium, moaning about Maisie. Once the campaign is over, Dick returns to London where he eventually reunites with Torpenhow. His war sketches have drawn attention in England and when his former employers try to withhold his submitted works, Dick bullies their representative into returning them. He shares a rented apartment with Torpenhow in London where the two, along with a few other friends, spend their time working and discussing "Art". Dick runs into Maisie again who is also working as a painter and a student under Dick's former teacher, Kami. He asks her about their relationship and, though she rebuffs his advances, she asks him to visit her every Sunday as she values his advice about her work. He relents, assuming that she would grow to love him as he loves her. He also meets Maisie's roommate, a red-haired girl, who immediately despises him.
While discussing her work, Dick begins to argue with Maisie about her attempt to paint the "Melancolia" from the book, The City of Dreadful Night. Dick says that it is beyond her ability and challenges her that he can do it better. Maisie soon departs for Paris to work under Kami for some months and Dick sees her off at the harbour. He finally convinces her to give him a kiss, making the red-haired girl furious. When he returns to his room, he discovers that Torpenhow has brought in a pretty young prostitute named Bessie, whom he found collapsed in the hall. Taken by her face, Dick convinces the girl to return to his studio so that he can paint her in return for payment. Eventually, Bessie tries to seduce Torpenhow, but they are interrupted by Dick, who rebukes Torpenhow and sends him away. Bessie is furious at Dick but continues to model for him because of the money. Dick hits upon his notion for the "Melancolia" who he models on Bessie but discovers to his horror that he is going blind due to a past battle injury. He still manages to complete the painting a week after Torpenhow returns, relying on whiskey to help his failing vision. However, Bessie destroys the painting in revenge for his earlier interference. Torpenhow hides the fact from Dick, who is now completely blind, regretting that he ever helped the girl.
When news arrives of a new campaign in Sudan, Torpenhow visits Maisie in Paris and persuades her to meet Dick in the hope that she will look after him. Though visibly anguished, she refuses and Dick gently asks her to leave. He hides this fact from Torpenhow, who leaves for the campaign with their friends. Dick meets with Bessie again and upon learning of the Melancolia's destruction, decides to leave for the campaign as well. With help from an acquaintance in Port Said, he reaches the battlefield at the very start of a battle but is killed by a bullet to the head.
Themes
A major theme that runs throughout the novel is unrequited love, embodied in Dick's love for Maisie and his ultimately futile attempts at getting her to fall in love with him in return. In contrast, the novel also explores the friendship between Dick and Torpenhow with The Guardian noting it to be "the only emotionally satisfying relationship" in the novel.[1] Kipling also depicts the cruelty and brutality in war as well as daily life, in events such as Torpenhow gouging out an Arab soldier's eye, Dick's bullying of the syndicate representative, his treatment of Bessie and his response to the gunning down of enemy soldiers in the final chapter.[4] He focuses also on art and the role of the artist, and Dick's paintings form a central feature, especially the Melancolia which is ultimately destroyed.[4] Kipling especially derides the commercialisation of art when Dick is chastised by his friends for his arrogance at his successes and love for money. He contrasts it with Dick's sarcasm for having to clean a graphic portrait of a Sudanese rifleman to appeal to the general public.[5]
The novel also explores masculinity and contrasts it with feminine traits and roles as it was during the Victorian period. This is evident in Dick's experiences as a war artist which is shown to have given him a wider perspective on his art and is something that Maisie will never experience.[6] Kipling also shows the effect of childhood abuse with Mrs. Jennett's treatment of Dick causing him to become a "natural liar" and "unkempt in body and savage in soul." This is reflected in his later bullying of the syndicate's representative.[5]
The novel also deals with blindness and Dick's slide into despair and helplessness due to the loss of his ability to work and the resulting abandonment by Maisie. Dick sums it up with the statement that "...it is better to remain alone and suffer only the misery of being alone, so long as it is possible to find distraction in daily work. When that resource goes the man is to be pitied and left alone".[5]
Publication history
The Light That Failed was initially set to be first published by John W. Lovell in New York but it was delayed, allowing for Lippincott's Magazine to publish it first in January 1891. The novel, Kipling's first, was published in four different versions over a period of two years.[7] The Lippincott edition had twelve chapters and a happy ending. However, Kipling had originally written a fifteen-chapter version that ended with Dick's death. Deciding that this would be too sad for public consumption, he changed it to end with the protagonists' engagement.[4][7]Lippincott paid Kipling $800 for the novel.[7]
The fifteen-chapter edition would later be published as a hardback "Standard edition" by MacMillan with a prefatory note that stated: "... The Light That Failed as it was originally conceived by the Writer." It is believed that Kipling's mother had pressed to release the happy ending which Kipling later regretted, leading to the note in the "Standard edition" of the novel.[4]
Critical reception
The Light That Failed was poorly received by critics in the main. Jad Adams calls the novel richly revealing even though it was badly reviewed, especially its man-loving and misogynistic undercurrents. He calls it "a metaphor for the failing gallantry of 19th-century man confronting the new woman."[1]Andrew Lycett, in his biography of Kipling, called it a "grown-up novel by an emotionally immature man."[8] It has been variously derided as "sentimental, unstructured, melodramatic, chauvinistic, and implausible."[4] Kipling admitted in his autobiography that the novel was a conte (short tale of adventure) and not a built book.[9]Lord Birkenhead calls the novel a "rotten apple" among Kipling's other published works.[10]George Orwell, in an unsigned review of Rudyard Kipling, by Edward Shanks,[11] says, "Curiously enough, he [Shanks] has a very low opinion of that excellent novel The Light That Failed."[12]
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work.
Kim is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning English author Rudyard Kipling. It was first published serially in McClure's Magazine from December 1900 to October 1901 as well as in Cassell's Magazine from January to November 1901, and first published in book form by Macmillan & Co. Ltd in October 1901. The story unfolds against the backdrop of the Great Game, the political conflict between Russia and Britain in Central Asia. The novel popularized the phrase and idea of the Great Game.
Stalky & Co. is a novel by Rudyard Kipling about adolescent boys at a British boarding school. It is a collection of school stories whose three juvenile protagonists display a know-it-all, cynical outlook on patriotism and authority. It was first published in 1899 after the stories had appeared in magazines during the previous two years. It is set at a school dubbed "the College" or "the Coll.", which is based on the actual United Services College that Kipling attended as a boy.
Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, also known as The Jungle Book, is a 1994 American adventure film co-written and directed by Stephen Sommers, produced by Edward S. Feldman and Raju Patel, from a story by Ronald Yanover and Mark Geldman. It is a live-action adaptation of the Mowgli stories from The Jungle Book (1894) and The Second Jungle Book (1895) by Rudyard Kipling, alongside Walt Disney's animated film of the same name from 1967.
"Baa Baa, Black Sheep" is the title of a semi-autobiographical short story by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1888.
"Danny Deever" is an 1890 poem by Rudyard Kipling, one of the first of the Barrack-Room Ballads. It received wide critical and popular acclaim, and is often regarded as one of the most significant pieces of Kipling's early verse. The poem, a ballad, describes the execution of a British soldier in India for murder. His execution is viewed by his regiment, paraded to watch it, and the poem is composed of the comments they exchange as they see him hanged.
"The law of the jungle" is an expression that has come to describe a scenario where "anything goes". The Oxford English Dictionary defines the Law of the Jungle as "the code of survival in jungle life, now usually with reference to the superiority of brute force or self-interest in the struggle for survival".
In Black and White is a collection of eight short stories by Rudyard Kipling which was first published in a booklet of 108 pages as no. 3 of A H Wheeler & Co.’s Indian Railway Library in 1888. It was subsequently published in a book along with nos 1 and 2, Soldiers Three (1888) and The Story of the Gadsbys, as Soldiers Three (1899). The characters about whom the stories are concerned are native Indians, rather than the British for writing about whom Kipling may be better known; four of the stories are narrated by the Indians, and four by an observant wise English journalist. The stories are:
"Lispeth" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on 29 November 1886; its first appearance in book form was in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and it later appeared in subsequent editions of that collection. The tale is an interesting example of Kipling's attitudes to different races and cultures, which is less simple than many accounts of his beliefs allow.
"Yoked with an Unbeliever" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on December 7, 1886, and in book form in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888. It also appears in subsequent editions of that collection.
Under the Deodars is a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling.
Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories is a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling.
The Light That Failed is a 1939 drama film based on Rudyard Kipling's 1891 novel of the same name. It stars Ronald Colman as an artist who is going blind.
The Enemy Stars, is a science fiction novel by American writer Poul Anderson, published in 1959 by J.B Lippincott in the US and by Longmans in Canada. Originally published in Astounding Science Fiction under the title We Have Fed Our Sea__, it was a nominee for the 1959 Hugo Award for Best Novel. The original title refers to a line in a poem by Rudyard Kipling.
Bennet Graham Burley was a Scottish-born pirate, Confederate spy and journalist. Later in life, he changed his surname to Burleigh and became a celebrated war correspondent for London's The Daily Telegraph.
The Light That Failed is a 1923 American silent drama film that was directed by George Melford and written by Jack Cunningham and F. McGrew Willis based on the 1891 novelette of the same name by Rudyard Kipling. The film stars Jacqueline Logan, Percy Marmont, David Torrence, Sigrid Holmquist, Mabel Van Buren, Luke Cosgrave, and Peggy Schaffer. The film was released on October 25, 1923, by Paramount Pictures.
"Dane-geld" is a poem by British writer Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936). It relates to the unwisdom of paying "Danegeld", or what is nowadays called blackmail and protection money. The most famous lines are "once you have paid him the Danegeld/ You never get rid of the Dane."
"The Army of a Dream" is a speculative fiction short story written by Rudyard Kipling, published in the Morning Post in June 1904. In it Kipling puts forward various methods for reforming the British Army of the period.
The Light That Failed is a lost 1916 silent film produced and directed by Edward José and starring Robert Edeson and Jose Collins. It was based on the 1891 novel of the same name by Rudyard Kipling and had been performed on the Broadway stage by Johnston Forbes-Robertson and Gertrude Elliott in 1904. It was distributed by Pathé Exchange.
Caroline Starr Balestier Kipling was the American-born wife of Rudyard Kipling and the custodian of his literary legacy after his death in 1936.
↑ Payton, Gordon; Grams, Martin (1999). The CBS Radio Mystery Theater: An Episode Guide and Handbook to Nine Years of Broadcasting, 1974-1982. McFarland. p.195. ISBN0786405597.
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