8 h 20 minAudiobook6 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the work that gives your life meaning cannot win you the love you want?
Dick Heldar grows from a lonely orphan in Southsea into a painter of war scenes. His work takes him through the burning sands of the Sudan and into London's crowded studios. Success brings commissions and a reputation, but his deepest ambition remains tied to Maisie, the girl he grows up beside.
Maisie has ambitions of her own. She wants to become a real painter and refuses to be turned aside. As Dick pursues her love, his friendship with the war correspondent Torpenhow offers a steadier bond. In The Light That Failed, Rudyard Kipling brings art, war, and longing into a hard question: what do we owe our work, and those we love?
What you’ll discover
- An artist's fierce ambition Follow Dick as his gift for painting war brings success without answering his deepest longing.
- A woman with purpose Meet Maisie, whose stubborn commitment to painting makes her more than the object of Dick's love.
- Friendship that holds steady Find warmth in Torpenhow's calm humor and the untidy London rooms he shares with Dick.
- A world in motion Move from an English seaside childhood to army campaigns, London studios, and Paris art schools.
- Sharp scenes, hard questions Kipling's quick pace and sharp dialogue give ambition and unreturned love a lasting sting.
Who will love it
For readers who love Victorian fiction, stories about artists and their work, and tales of male friendship and war, with ambition, unreturned love and courage at their heart.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Two children raised in a cold house
- A young man learns war and draws it
- London rooms and a friendship that holds
- Success comes, but Dick works for one woman
- Maisie returns with her own ambition
- Bessie Broke and the picture Dick cares about most
- What the title means for Dick
- Ambition against love, and the courage to face the dark
- How Kipling tells it and why it still bites
Who’s who
- Dick HeldarAn orphan turned war artist, brave and quick with a pencil, who has built his life around winning Maisie's love.
- MaisieDick's childhood friend, a serious and stubborn young woman who wants to be a real painter and will not be turned aside.
- TorpenhowA calm and humorous war correspondent who shares rooms with Dick and gives him steady, unselfish friendship.
- Bessie BrokeA sharp-tongued young model who sits for Dick's most serious painting and falls in love with Torpenhow.
- The NilghaiA large, loud, clever correspondent in Torpenhow's circle, who argues about everything.
- Mrs JennettThe strict woman who raises Dick in Southsea and shapes his hard, secretive childhood.
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La luce che si spense in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
La luce che si spense
by Rudyard Kipling · 1891
War artist Dick Heldar builds his life around winning Maisie's love, but she has an ambition of her own.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Can one great hope hold up a whole life? Dick Heldar bets everything on it.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Two children raised in a cold house
The story opens by the sea, near Fort Keeling. Dick Heldar is a small boy with no parents, left with a hard woman named Mrs Jennett. In the same house lives Maisie, a girl who also has no family of her own.
The house is not kind. Mrs Jennett believes in rules and in punishing the slightest fault. Dick learns to lie to avoid a beating and grows used to facing punishment. Kipling knew such a home from his own boyhood.
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What is The Light That Failed about?
It tells of Dick Heldar, an orphan who becomes a successful war artist while pining for Maisie, a childhood friend who wants to be a painter. It deals with ambition, unreturned love, loyalty and courage.
Is The Light That Failed based on a true story?
It is fiction, but Kipling drew on his own life. The unhappy boyhood in Southsea and the world of young journalists in London both come from his own experience.
Who is Torpenhow in The Light That Failed?
Torpenhow is a war correspondent who meets Dick in the Sudan and later shares rooms with him in London. He is the book's example of calm, loyal friendship.
The author
Rudyard Kipling
1865–1936 · English novelist and poet
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) was an English writer and poet born in Bombay, India. He lived in India, England and the United States. He wrote The Jungle Book (1894), The Second Jungle Book (1895), Kim (1901) and Just So Stories (1902). He died in London in 1936.
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