Puck of Pook's Hill

"Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies" tell the tale of how Una and Dan, performing a scene from "A Midsummer Night's Dream", accidentally summon Puck to a fairy ring near their Sussex home. Through Puck, the children are witnesses to tales of English History. Kipling's historical imagination extends to a variety of stories, many of which blend the ghostly and the farmiliar, and often anticipate his later writing in their themes - a sense of loss and breakdown, but also healing. First published in magazines between 1906 and 1910, the stories were accompanied by some of Kipling's most famous poems, including "If" and "The Way Through The Woods". This edition includes an introduction which dispels the myth that these stories are just a nostalgic look at English history, discusses their relationship to other historical fiction, and relates them to Kipling's earlier and later writings.