Tells the story of Kimball O'Hara, an orphaned Irish boy growing up in late nineteenth-century India, and his quest for identity as he strives to reconcile his Western inheritance with the Indian life he has always known. This edition sets the novel in the context of the historical period and addresses Kiplings ambivalent relationship with India, the Empires treatment of the "other" classes and races who worked to maintain the British presence in India, and the place of Kim in Kiplings career as a writer.