Kim by Rudyard Kipling was first published serially in McClure's Magazine and Cassell's Magazine. It was later published as a book by Macmillan and Co. Ltd. in October 1901. The story takes place in the late 19th century, after the Second Afghan War but before the Third. It focuses on the rivalry between the British and Russian Empires over their respective colonial conquests of Central Asia. The rivalry between Britain and Russia is often termed the "Great Game," and Kim played a large role in popularizing this term.
Kim tells the journey of Kimball O'Hara, the orphaned son of a poor Irish soldier. He lives a vagrant lifestyle on the streets of Lahore, where he begs and does small tasks to get by. Despite being Irish by birth, Kim is welcomed and immersed in Lahore's culture. As the story progresses, Kim befriends a Tibetan Buddhist lama, and he travels around the subcontinent as his disciple. On his journey, he becomes a spy for the British government, working undercover to gather intelligence in a complex political landscape. While he is forced to adopt various disguises and personas, he must simultaneously grapple with questions of identity, belonging, and national allegiance.
Kipling received the Nobel Prize in Literature six years after Kim was published, which drew further attention to the novel. Many scholars consider Kim to be Kipling's masterpiece for its explorations of adventure, poverty, and the threat of imminent war. Politically, Kipling was an unapologetic supporter of British imperialism, which is necessary to consider when reading works of this period. In Kim, Kipling draws upon his own childhood and adolescent experiences to vividly depict the British experience in India at the turn of the twentieth century. Over a century after its publication, Kim was listed on the Big Read, the BBC's 2003 list of the U.K.'s most beloved books.
