1911. Kipling, English short-story writer, novelist and poet, who celebrated the heroism of British colonial soldiers in India and Burma, was the first Englishman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. This is the version of this story as he originally intended. It is the story of an artist, Dick Heldar, who becomes successful through drawings of a war in Sudan for one of the London newspapers. He returns to London, falls in love with his childhood playmate Maisie and begins work on what is to be his masterpiece. Seeking medical advice for a problem with his eyes, he finds out that he is going blind. In the original published version of the book, the story ends here, with Maisie marrying Dick and caring for him. In this edition, Kipling restores the story to what he wanted it to be and it ends with Maisie abandoning Dick and leaving him to sink into squalor. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.