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Article: The Unforgiving Minute: A Life of Rudyard Kipling.(Review)
- Article from:
- Contemporary Review
- Article date:
- August 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Contemporary Review Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Harry Ricketts. Chatto & Windus. [pounds]25.00. 434 pages. ISBN 0-7011-3744-4.
When, after his death aged seventy in 1936, the time came for the writing of Kipling's 'official life', not so much a fly as a giant hornet in the biographical ointment was his formidable and fussily post-mortem protective daughter, Mrs. Bambridge.
The author entrusted to perform the decent obsequies was the New Zealand novelist and biographer, Hector Bolitho. He and Mrs. B. did not chime. In his footsteps followed rapidly and were rapidly dismissed, 'Taffrail', distinguished writer of sea-stories, and Eric Linklater. The fourth candidate was F. E. Smith's son, the second ...