Jan Montefiore – författare

A relentlessly inventive collection of myths that betray a deep love and respect for the natural world, the Penguin Classics edition of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories is edited with an introduction by Judith Plotz and a general preface by series editor Jan Montefiore.In these bewitching stories we learn 'How the Camel got his Hump', ' How the Leopard got his Spots' and 'How the Whale got his Throat', as Rudyard Kipling conjures up distant lands, beautiful gardens of splendid palaces, the sea, the deserts, the jungle and all its creatures. Inspired by Kipling's delight in human eccentricities and the animal world, and based on bedtime stories he told to his daughter, these strikingly imaginative fables explore the myths of creation, the nature of beasts and the origins of language and writing. They are linked by poems and scattered with Kipling's illustrations, which contain hidden jokes, symbols and puzzles. Among Kipling's most loved works, the Just So Stories have been continually in print since 1902.Part of a series of new editions of Kipling's works in Penguin Classics, this volume contains a General Preface by Jan Montefiore and an introduction by Judith Plotz exploring the origins of the stories in Kipling's own life and in folklore, their place in classic children's literature and their extraordinary language.Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was born in Bombay. In 1882 he started work as a journalist in India, and while there produced a body of work, stories, sketches and poems - notably Plain Tales from the Hills (1888) - which made him an instant literary celebrity when he returned to England in 1889. His most famous works include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901) and the Just So Stories (1902). Kipling refused to accept the role of Poet Laureate and other civil honours, but he was the first English writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize, in 1907. If you enjoyed Just So Stories, you might like Selected Tales by the Brothers Grimm, also available in Penguin Classics.

The story of the man-cub Mowgli who is raised by wolves in the Indian jungle, guided by his mentors Baloo the bear, Bagheera the black panther and the ancient python Kaa, and who confronts his arch-enemy Shere Khan the tiger, is one of the greatest literary myths ever created. Mowgli's adventures are juxtaposed with other animal stories set in the British Empire, ranging from the heroic battle of 'Rikki-tikki-tavi' and the Himalayan pastoral 'Purun Bhagat' to the drama of survival in 'The White Seal'. With The Jungle Books Rudyard Kipling drew on ancient beast fables, Buddhist philosophy and memories of his Anglo-Indian upbringing to create a rich, symbolic portrait of man and nature, and an eternal classic of childhood that has had a lasting impact on our imaginations.Part of a series of new editions of Kipling's works in Penguin Classics, this volume contains a General Preface by Jan Montefiore and an introduction by Kaori Nagai discussing the many imperial, Indian and literary contexts of The Jungle Books.

Rudyard Kipling is one of the most magical storytellers in the English language. This new selection brings together the best of his short writings, following the development of his work over fifty years. They take us from the harsh, cruel, vividly realized world of the 'Indian' stories that made his name, through the experimental modernism of his middle period to the highly-wrought subtleties of his later pieces. Including the tale of insanity and empire, 'The Man Who Would Be King', the high-spirited 'The Village that Voted the Earth Was Flat', the fable of childhood cruelty and revenge 'Baa Baa, Black Sheep', the menacing psychological study 'Mary Postgate' and the ambiguous portrayal of grief and mourning in 'The Gardener', here are stories of criminals, ghosts, femmes fatales, madness and murder.

Rudyard Kipling was a Victorian and an early modernist, a disciplinarian imperialist who sympathised with children and outlaws, a globe-trotter who mythologised ‘Old England’, and a world-famous author whom intellectuals despised. The central theme of this book is the way his work and its reception are both fissured and energised by these contradictions. This thorough study initially discusses Kipling’s ambivalent knowing attitude to unknowable otherness, his rhetorical imitations of Indian and demotic vernaculars, his work ethic and ideal of imperialist masculinity, thus contextualising the central discussion of his masterpiece Kim which, almost uniquely, takes Indian otherness as a source of pleasure not anxiety. Jan Montefiore describes Kipling as a writer on the cusp of modernity, examining how his fiction and poetry engaged with radio, cinema and air travel, how his poetry anticipated and influenced the subversive uncertainties of modernism, and how his post-war contributions to the literature of mourning undermined their own overt traditionalism.

Voices and Visions: Interviews with the Contemporary English-Language Poets of Wales captures the perspectives of key Anglophone Welsh and Wales-associated poets who have emerged in the wake of devolution and Wales’s 1997 «yes» vote – or whose career profiles and development were consolidated in its wake. The post-1997 era has been a dynamic one – notably characterised by a striking gender shift, in which women are now at the very centre of Anglophone Welsh poetics. It has also been a period in which a number of idiosyncratic younger voices have emerged and established themselves both within Wales and further afield. Compelling and candid, these interviews examine poets’ practice and preoccupations, their native and elective poetic identities, their personal insights into a changing Wales, the prevailing conditions which may have enabled them, and their place within the wider firmament of British poetics. Voices and Visions: Interviews with the Contemporary English-Language Poets of Wales is a fascinating record of play, seriousness, ambition, and local and international interests from the point of view of some of Wales’s most significant contemporary poets. Poets included: Zoë Brigley, Sarah Corbett, Jasmine Donahaye, Jonathan Edwards, Dai George, Ian Gregson, Philip Gross, Meirion Jordan, Patrick McGuinness, Pascale Petit, Deryn Rees-Jones, Gwyneth Lewis, Rhian Edwards, Zoë Skoulding, and Tiffany Atkinson.