United Services College, where Kipling studied.
The United Services College was an English private boys' public boarding school for the sons of military officers, located at Westward Ho! near Bideford in North Devon. It was founded to prepare pupils for military service, many of them going on to Sandhurst and Dartmouth.
Career
Gallery of Rudyard Kipling
1892
Rudyard Kipling, by Bourne & Shepherd, Kolkata
Gallery of Rudyard Kipling
1895
Kipling in his study at Naulakha, Vermont, United States
Gallery of Rudyard Kipling
1911
From left to right, Field Marshal Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts of Kandahar (1832 - 1914), the Bishop of Perpignan, English author Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) and Lady Edwina Roberts (1875 - 1955), daughter of Earl Roberts, in the mountain village of Vernet-les-Bains.
Gallery of Rudyard Kipling
1911
Front row, from left: English soldier Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts of Kandahar (1832 - 1914); the Bishop of Perpignan; the Earl's daughter Lady Edwina Roberts; and English writer Rudyard Kipling (1865 -1936), in the mountain village of Vernet-les-Bains.
Gallery of Rudyard Kipling
1915
Rudyard Kipling appealing for recruits to join the British Army during the First World War.
Gallery of Rudyard Kipling
1915
Rudyard Kipling delivering an address.
Gallery of Rudyard Kipling
1920
Rudyard Kipling
Gallery of Rudyard Kipling
1921
Sir James Frazer, left, the Orientalist of the British Academy, and Rudyard Kipling, centre, upon whom the Doctor's Degree of the University of Paris was conferred at the Sorbonne.
Gallery of Rudyard Kipling
1921
Rudyard Kipling
Gallery of Rudyard Kipling
1922
His Majesty King George of England, accompanied by Rudyard Kipling, visits the graves of British soldiers dead in Belgium.
Gallery of Rudyard Kipling
1923
Rudyard Kipling
Gallery of Rudyard Kipling
1923
Rudyard Kipling
Gallery of Rudyard Kipling
1928
Rudyard Kipling
Gallery of Rudyard Kipling
1930
Author, Rudyard Kipling (second from right) on board the troopship Somersetshire which is en-route for India.
Gallery of Rudyard Kipling
1935
Rudyard Kipling
Gallery of Rudyard Kipling
H. A. Gwynne, Julian Ralph, Perceval Landon, and Rudyard Kipling in South Africa, 1900–1901.
From left to right, Field Marshal Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts of Kandahar (1832 - 1914), the Bishop of Perpignan, English author Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) and Lady Edwina Roberts (1875 - 1955), daughter of Earl Roberts, in the mountain village of Vernet-les-Bains.
Front row, from left: English soldier Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts of Kandahar (1832 - 1914); the Bishop of Perpignan; the Earl's daughter Lady Edwina Roberts; and English writer Rudyard Kipling (1865 -1936), in the mountain village of Vernet-les-Bains.
Sir James Frazer, left, the Orientalist of the British Academy, and Rudyard Kipling, centre, upon whom the Doctor's Degree of the University of Paris was conferred at the Sorbonne.
United Services College, where Kipling studied.
The United Services College was an English private boys' public boarding school for the sons of military officers, located at Westward Ho! near Bideford in North Devon. It was founded to prepare pupils for military service, many of them going on to Sandhurst and Dartmouth.
(This collection of literature attempts to compile many of...)
This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic, timeless works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.
(The Inexpressible gave a ball. They borrowed a seven-poun...)
The Inexpressible gave a ball. They borrowed a seven-pounder from the Gunners, and wreathed it with laurels, and made the dancing-floor plate-glass, and provided a supper, the like of which had never been eaten before, and set two sentries at the door of the room to hold the trays of program-cards.
(Originally published in 1892 in Colorado, in the days whe...)
Originally published in 1892 in Colorado, in the days when the railroad was king, two towns are vying for the train station for a new railroad. When one town’s representative learns that the rail owner’s wife covets the Naulahka, a jeweled girdle in India, he journeys there to get it for her and becomes embroiled in a plan to save the heir to the throne before returning home to find out the fate of his town’s quest.
(The Second Jungle Book is a sequel to Rudyard Kipling's c...)
The Second Jungle Book is a sequel to Rudyard Kipling's classic, The Jungle Book. Mowgli, the boy raised by wolves learns more of life and survival in the Indian jungle in the company of well-loved characters such as Baloo the brown bear, and Bagheer the black panther. Including three further stories of life in India, this rich collection of adventure, fable, and poetry from the master-storyteller and illustrated by his father, John Lockwood Kipling, is a classic to treasure.
(This beautiful book illustrated by John Joven contains si...)
This beautiful book illustrated by John Joven contains six of Rudyard Kiplings classic Just So Stories , specially rewritten for little children. The stories include How the Elephant got his Trunk, How the Leopard got his Spots and How the Camel got his Hump. Perfect for reading aloud to young children or for older children to read by themselves.
(Land and Sea Tales brings together a collection of Kiplin...)
Land and Sea Tales brings together a collection of Kipling's strikingly honest short stories. As with many of his other works, these tales take on the themes of bravery and honor in the face of adversity.
(Limits and Renewals, Kiplings last collection of short st...)
Limits and Renewals, Kiplings last collection of short stories, was written shortly after the death of his only son. Unsurprisingly therefore, many of the stories take on the themes of pain, inner suffering and mental anguish, with an on-going exploration into the level of physical and psychological torment that can be endured before a complete breakdown.
("Far across green spaces around the house was a marvelous...)
"Far across green spaces around the house was a marvelous place filled with smells of paints and oils, and lumps of clay with which I played. That was the atelier of my Father's School of Art, and a Mr. Terry Sahib, his assistant, to whom my small sister was devoted, was our great friend. Once, on the way there alone, I passed the edge of a huge ravine a foot deep, where a winged monster as big as myself attacked me, and I fled and wept. My Father drew for me a picture of the tragedy with a rhyme beneath."
Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom appreciated for his innovative approach in the art of the short story.
Background
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born on December 30, 1865, in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, where his father was a professor of architectural sculpture in the School of Art. His mother was Miss Alice Macdonald of Birmingham, whose sisters were married respectively to Sir E. Burne-Jones and Sir Edward Poynter.
Education
In 1871 Rudyard was sent to England for his education. In 1878 Rudyard entered the United Services College at "Westward Ho!," a boarding school in Devon. There young "Gigger" endured bullying and harsh discipline but also enjoyed the close friendships, practical jokes, and merry pranks he later recorded in Stalky & Co. (1899).
His close friend was the headmaster, "Crom" Price, who encouraged Kipling's literary ambitions by having him edit the school paper and praising the poems which he wrote for it. When Kipling sent some of these to India, his father had them privately printed as Schoolboy Lyrics (1881), Kipling's first published work.
Kipling rejoined his parents in Lahore in 1882 and became a subeditor for the Civil and Military Gazette. In 1887 he moved to the Allahabad Pioneer, a better paper which gave him greater liberty in his writing. The result was a flood of satiric verses, published as Departmental Ditties in 1886, and over 70 short stories published in 1888 in seven paperback volumes. In style, the stories showed the influence of Edgar Allan Poe, Bret Harte, and Guy de Maupassant; but the subjects were Kipling's own: Anglo-Indian society, which he readily criticized with an acid pen, and the life of the common British soldier and the Indian native, which he portrayed accurately and sympathetically.
In 1889 Kipling took a long voyage through China, Japan, and the United States. When he reached London, he found that his stories had preceded him and established him as a brilliant new author. He was readily accepted into the circle of leading writers, including William Ernest Henley, Thomas Hardy, George Saintsbury, and Andrew Lang. For Henley's Scots Observer, he wrote a number of stories and some of his best-remembered poems: "A Ballad of East and West," "Mandalay," and "The English Flag." He also introduced English readers to a "new genre" of serious poems in Cockney dialect: "Danny Deever," "Tommy," "Fuzzy-Wuzzy," and "Gunga Din." Kipling's first novel, The Light That Failed (1891), was unsuccessful. But when his stories were collected as Life's Handicap (1891) and poems as Barrackroom Ballads (1892), Kipling replaced Tennyson as the most popular English author.
He settled on the Balestier estate near Brattleboro, Vermont, and began 4 of the happiest years of Kipling's life, during which he wrote some of his best work - Many Inventions (1893), perhaps his best volume of short stories; The Jungle Book (1894) and The Second Jungle Book (1895), two books of animal fables which attract readers of all ages by illustrating the larger truths of life; The Seven Seas (1896), a new collection of poems in experimental rhythms; and Captains Courageous (1897), a novel-length sea story. These works not only assured Kipling's lasting fame as a serious writer but also made him a rich man.
In 1897 the Kiplings settled in Rottingdean, a village on the British coast near Brighton. The outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898 and the Boer War in 1899 turned Kipling's attention to colonial affairs. He began to publish a number of solemn poems in standard English in the London Times. The most famous of these, "Recessional" (July 17, 1897), issued a warning to Englishmen to consider their accomplishments in the Diamond Jubilee year of Queen Victoria's reign with humility and awe rather than pride and arrogance. The equally well-known "White Man's Burden" (February 4, 1899) clearly expressed the attitudes toward empire implicit in the stories in The Day's Work (1898) and A Fleet in Being (1898).
During the Boer War, Kipling spent several months in South Africa, where he raised funds for soldiers' relief and worked on an army newspaper, the Friend. In 1901 Kipling published Kim, the last and most charming of his portrayals of Indian life. But anti-imperialist reaction following the end of the Boer War caused a decline in Kipling's popularity. When he published The Five Nations, a book of South African verse, in 1903, he was attacked in parodies, caricatures, and serious protests as the opponent of a growing spirit of peace and democratic equality. Kipling retired to "Bateman's," a house near Burwash, a secluded village in Essex.
Kipling now turned from the wide empire as subject to England itself. In 1902 he published Just So Stories for Little Children. He also issued two books of stories of England's past, intended, like the Jungle Books, for young readers but suitable for adults as well: Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) and Rewards and Fairies (1910). But his most significant work was a number of volumes of short stories written in a new style: Traffics and Discoveries (1904), Actions and Reactions (1904), A Diversity of Creatures (1917), Debits and Credits (1926), and Limits and Renewals (1932). These later stories treat more complex, subtle, and somber subjects in a style more compressed, allusive, and elliptical. Consequently, these stories have never been as popular as his earlier work. But modern critics, in reevaluating Kipling, have found a greater power and depth that make them his best work.
He died on January 18, 1936, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. His autobiography, Something of Myself, was published posthumously in 1937.
Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed according to the political and social climate of the age and the resulting contrasting views about him continued for much of the 20th century. George Orwell saw Kipling as "a jingo imperialist", explaining that he was "morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting".
He referred to less highly developed peoples as "lesser breeds" and considered order, discipline, sacrifice, and humility to be the essential qualities of colonial rulers. These views have been denounced as racist, elitist, and jingoistic. But for Kipling, the term "white man" indicated citizens of the more highly developed nations, whose duty was to spread law, literacy, and morality throughout the world.
Views
Quotations:
"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
"God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers."
"A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty."
"I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble."
"I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn't explain away afterwards."
"If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten."
"We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding."
"Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears."
"For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack."
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition."
"I am, by calling, a dealer in words; and words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind."
"You must learn to forgive a man when he's in love. He's always a nuisance."
"For the female of the species is more deadly than the male."
"We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse."
"War is an ill thing, as I surely know. But 'twould be an ill world for weaponless dreamers if evil men were not now and then slain."
Membership
Kipling was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. About 1885 Kipling became a Freemason, before the usual minimum age of 21. He was initiated into Hope and Perseverance Lodge No. 782 in Lahore. Kipling received not only the three degrees of Craft Masonry but also the side degrees of Mark Master Mason and Royal Ark Mariner.
Personality
Kipling's closest friend at Westward Ho!, George Beresford, described him as a short, but "cheery, capering, podgy, little fellow" with a thick pair of spectacles over "a broad smile. " His eyes were brilliant blue, and over them his heavy black eyebrows moved up and down as he talked.
Quotes from others about the person
Henry James: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known."
Douglas Kerr, literary critic: "(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."
Connections
In 1892, Rudyard Kipling married Caroline Starr Balestier. They had three children - two daughters, Josephine and Elsie, and a son, John. Among them, only Elsie survived her parents. While Josephine died from influenza at the age of six, John went missing during World War I. It is presumed that he died in action.
Rudyard Kipling: A Study of the Short Fiction
This study of representative stories from the enormous body of short works by Rudyard Kipling reflects the recent revival of serious critical interest in the author perhaps best known for such children's stories as Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and How the Camel Got His Hump.
The Long Recessional
A distinguished biographer David Gilmour not only explains how and why Kipling wrote, but also explores the themes of his complicated life, his ideas, his relationships, and his views on the Empire and the future.
2002
Rudyard Kipling: Hell and Heroism
Rudyard Kipling: Hell and Heroism is an exploration of two fundamental yet greatly neglected aspects of the author's life and writings, his deep-seated pessimism and his complex creed of heroism.