Puck of Pook's Hill gathers Rudyard Kipling's magical-historical tales in which the elf Puck summons figures from England's past to instruct two Edwardian children, Dan and Una. Blending prose with ballad-like verse, antiquarian learning with nursery enchantment, the collection transforms Sussex landscape into a palimpsest of Roman, Norman, Saxon, and later memories. With the original illustrations enriching its period atmosphere, the book stands within the tradition of children's fantasy while pursuing a distinctly imperial and historical meditation on national identity. Kipling, born in Bombay in 1865 and long shaped by movement between India and Britain, brought to this work his fascination with empire, inheritance, craftsmanship, and the moral uses of storytelling. Living at Bateman's in Sussex, he became deeply attentive to local history and rural continuity; that rootedness helped inspire a book in which place itself becomes archive, theater, and teacher. His command of dialect, song, and historical voice gives the stories unusual density. This collection is recommended to readers who value fantasy not as escape but as a disciplined imaginative encounter with history. It will especially reward admirers of literary children's books, historical fiction, folklore, and Kipling's more reflective art. This enriched edition has been carefully crafted to add value to your reading experience. - A comprehensive Introduction outlines these selected works' unifying features, themes, or stylistic evolutions. - The Author Biography highlights personal milestones and literary influences that shape the entire body of writing. - A Historical Context section situates the works in their broader era-social currents, cultural trends, and key events that underpin their creation. - A concise Synopsis (Selection) offers an accessible overview of the included texts, helping readers navigate plotlines and main ideas without revealing critical twists. - A unified Analysis examines recurring motifs and stylistic hallmarks across the collection, tying the stories together while spotlighting the different work's strengths. - Reflection questions inspire deeper contemplation of the author's overarching message, inviting readers to draw connections among different texts and relate them to modern contexts. - Lastly, our hand-picked Memorable Quotes distill pivotal lines and turning points, serving as touchstones for the collection's central themes.
A fascinating account that weaves together history, philosophy, and personal anecdotes. [Kabir Sehgal] provides insights that are both riveting and thought-provoking
Vorwort
An entertaining and multidimensional portrait of currency through the ages.
Autorentext
Kabir Sehgal works in strategy at First Data Corporation, a global payment technology firm. He was previously a vice president at J.P. Morgan, advising asset managers on investments in emerging markets. A New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, he has written five books. He is also a jazz musician and Grammy-winning producer. He serves as an officer in the US Navy Reserve and is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the London School of Economics.
Klappentext
This carefully crafted ebook: "Puck of Pook's Hill - Complete Collection of Puck's Magical Stories (With Original Illustrations)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents.
Puck of Pook's Hill is a fantasy book, containing a series of short stories set in different periods of English history. It can count both as historical fantasy - since some of the stories told of the past have clear magical elements, and as contemporary fantasy - since it depicts a magical being active and practicing his magic in the England of the early 1900s when the book was written. The stories are all narrated to two children living near Burwash, in the area of Kipling's own house Bateman's, by people magically plucked out of history by the elf Puck, or told by Puck himself. (Puck, who refers to himself as "the oldest Old Thing in England", is better known as a character in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream.) The genres of particular stories range from authentic historical novella (A Centurion of the Thirtieth, On the Great Wall) to children's fantasy (Dymchurch Flit). Each story is bracketed by a poem which relates in some manner to the theme or subject of the story.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was an English short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He wrote tales and poems of British soldiers in India and stories for children. He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story; his children's books are classics of children's literature; and one critic described his work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift".
Zusammenfassung
Money isn't just coins, bank notes or clamshells; it is more than a store of value or unit of payment. It's an idea, a transformative player in how we view, cope, and harmonise with the world. Like it or not, money is a measure of status, well-being, and our chances to survive and thrive. Money isn't just what makes the world go around; it is largely what makes each of us go around.
In Coined, Kabir Sehgal travels the world while presenting a multidimensional portrait of currency through the ages. He explores the origin of exchange in the Galapagos Islands, searches for hoards of coins from an ancient civilization in Bangladesh, and learns about the art that appears on money from coin collectors in Vietnam. He takes you from the vaults beneath the Federal Reserve in New York to a beehive where pollen can be understood as a natural form of exchange. He details the birth of money, to its place in our culture both past and present, to how the obsession for it can lead to death and destruction, all the while mixing engaging and entertaining stories from the front lines of global currency exchange with extensive, thoughtful research. The story of money is rich and varied because it is our story.