Overview

Captains Courageous is an nautical adventure novel, by Rudyard Kipling, that follows the adventures of fifteen-year-old Harvey Cheyne Jr., the spoiled son of a railroad tycoon, after he is saved from drowning by a Portuguese fisherman in the north Atlantic. The novel originally appeared as a serialisation in McClure's, beginning with the November 1896 edition. In 1900, in his essay What We Can Expect of the American Boy, Teddy Roosevelt extolled the book and praised Kipling for describing in the liveliest way just what a boy should be and do. The book's title comes from the ballad Mary Ambree, which starts, When captains courageous, whom death could not daunt . Kipling had previously used the same title for an article on businessmen as the new adventurers, published in The Times of 23 November 1892. Protagonist Harvey Cheyne, Jr., is the son of a wealthy railroad magnate and his wife, in San Diego, California. Washed overboard from a transatlantic steamship and rescued by fishermen off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, Harvey can neither persuade them to take him quickly to port, nor convince them of his wealth. Harvey accuses the captain, Disko Troop of taking his money (which is later revealed to be on the deck Harvey fell from.) Disko Troop, captain of the We're Here, bloodies his nose but takes him in as a boy on the crew until they return to port. Harvey comes to accept his situation.Through a series of trials and adventures, Harvey, with the help of the captain's son Dan Troop, becomes acclimated to the fishing lifestyle, and even skillful. Great stories of the cod fishery with references to New England whaling and 19th century steam and sailing are intertwined with the We're Here's adventures during a season at sea.

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Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 - 18 January 1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in India, which inspired much of his work. Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King (1888).[2] His poems include Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), The Gods of the Copybook Headings (1919), The White Man's Burden (1899), and If- (1910). He is seen as an innovator in the art of the short story.[3] His children's books are classics; one critic noted a versatile and luminous narrative gift. [4][5] Kipling in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was among the United Kingdom's most popular writers.[3] Henry James said, Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known.[3] In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, as the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and at 41, its youngest recipient to date.[6] He was also sounded for the British Poet Laureateship and several times for a knighthood, but declined both.[7] Following his death in 1936, his ashes were interred at Poets' Corner, part of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey. Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed with the political and social climate of the age.[8][9] The contrasting views of him continued for much of the 20th century.[10][11] George Orwell saw Kipling as a jingo imperialist, who was morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting. [12] Literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote: [Kipling] is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled. But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognised as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with.

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