Mason, Philip - 'Kipling - The Glass, the Shadow and the Fire'

First edition. Jonathan Cape, London 1975.

" No English writer has been so deeply loved and hated as Kipling. In 1890, when he was only twenty-five, he was hailed as a genius - a Balzac or a Dickens - but by 1910 there was hardly a serious critic who would defend him.
Philip Mason 'gave Kipling unquestioning adoration as a boy', disliked him as an undergraduate, ignored him for many years and only turned to him again in later life. Having served in the Indian Civil Service for twenty years and written numerous distinguished books on India, he has a close and friendly aquaintance with the India Kipling left at twenty-four...
...This is a voyage of personal rediscovery, which will send those who have forgotten Kipling - and a whole generation who hardly know him - to the bookshelf to make new and exciting discoveries for themselves." (from the front-flap of the book)

Book and dustwrapper are in very good condition. Pages are clean and bright.