Rudyard Kipling Biography and List of Works

English short-story writer, novelist and poet, remembered for his celebration of British imperialism and heroism in India and Burma. Kipling was the first Englishman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (1907). His most popular works include THE JUNGLE BOOK (1894) and JUST SO STORIES (1902).

"O thirty million English that babble of England's might,
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;
Our children's childrens are lisping to "honour the charge they made - "
And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade!"
(from The Last of the Light Brigade', 1891)

Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, India. His father was an arts and crafts teacher at the Jeejeebhoy School of Art. His mother was a sister-in-law of the painter Edward Burne-Jones. India was at that time ruled by the British.

At the age of six he was taken to England by his parents and left at a foster home in South Sea for five years. His unhappiness at the unkind treatment he received was later expressed in the short story 'Baa Baa, Black Sheep', in the novel THE LIGHT THAT FAILED (1890), and in his autobiography (1937).

In 1878 Kipling entered United Services College, a boarding school in North Devon. It was an expensive institution that specialized in training for entry into military academies. His poor eyesight and mediocre results as a student quashed hopes about a military career. However, Kipling recalled these years in a lighter tone in one of his most popular books, STALKY & CO (1899).

Kipling returned to India in 1882, where he worked as a journalist in Lahore for the Civil and Military Gazette (1882-87) and as an assistant editor and overseas correspondent in Allahabad for Pioneer (1887-89). The stories written during his last two years in India were collected in THE PHANTOM RICKSHAW. It includes the famous story 'The Man Who Would Be a King.' In the story a white trader, Daniel Dravot sets himself up as a god and king in Kafristan, but a woman discovers that he is mortal and betrays him. His companion, Peachey Carnehan, manages to escape to tell the tale, but Dravot is killed.

Kilping's short stories and verses gained success in the England of the late 1880s, to which he returned in 1889, where he was hailed as the literary heir to Charles Dickens. Between the years 1889 and 1892, Kipling lived in London and published LIFE'S HANDICAP (1891), a collection of Indian stories that included 'The Man Who Was,' and 'BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS', a collection of poems that includes 'Gunga Din.'

"The female of the species is more deadly than the male."

In 1892 Kipling married Caroline Starr Balestier, the sister of an American publisher and writer, with whom he collaborated on a novel, THE NAULAHKA (1892). The young couple moved to the United States. Kipling was dissatisfied with life in Vermont, and after the death of his daughter, he took his family back to England and settled in Burwash, Sussex. Kipling's marriage was not in all respects happy. His wife disliked the vulgar aspects of her husband's character, and dominated the author. Kipling invented a persona acceptable to the public and developed his ideal man of action. During these restless years Kilping produced MANY INVENTIONS (1893), JUNGLE BOOK (1894), a collection of animal stories for children, THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK (1895), and THE SEVEN SEAS (1896).

Widely regarded as unofficial poet laureate, Kipling refused this and many honours, among them the Order of Merit. During the Boer War in 1899 Kilping spent several months in South Africa. In 1902 he moved to Sussex, also spending time in South Africa, where the influential British colonial statesmen Cecil Rhodes gave him a house. In 1901 KIM, widely considered Kipling's best novel, was published. The story, set in India, depicts the adventures of an orphaned son of a sergeant in an Irish regiment.

Soon after Kipling had received the Nobel Prize, his output of fiction and poems began to decline. His son was killed in World War I, and in 1923 Kipling published THE IRISH GUARDS IN THE GREAT WAR, a history of his son's regiment. Between 1922 and 1925 he was a rector at the University of St. Andrews. Kipling died on January 18, 1936 in London, and was buried in Poet's Corner at Westminster Abbey. Kipling's autobiography, SOMETHING OF MYSELF, appeared posthumously in 1937.

Take up the White Man's burden -
Send forth the best ye breed -
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild -
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
(from 'The White Man's Burden')

Kipling's glorification of the British Empire and his racial prejudices, has repelled many modern readers, and such admirers as W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot. However, contemporary readers loved Kipling's romantic tales concerning the adventures of Englishmen in strange and distant parts of the world. His most uncontroversial books are considered his tales for children. His own children appeared in the stories as Dan and Una - the death of 'Dan' in the WW I darkened author's later life. Characteristic of Kilping's work is realism, added with acute observation of men and landscapes, exploration of myth and fantasy, and a sharp, racy style.

Yes, Din! Din! Din!
You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Though I've belted you and flayed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man that I am, Gunga Din!
(from 'Gunga Din', 1890)

Kim (1901) - Kimball O'Hara is the orphan son of an Irish colour-sergeant and a nursemaid in a colonel's family. Kim meets a Tibetan Lama and attaches himself to the old man as a disciple. Working for the British Secret Service, Kim carries a vital message to Colonel Creighton in Umballa and is helped by the Lama on his journey. The chaplain of his father's old regiment recognizes Kim and he is dispatched to the school of Anglo-Indian children at Lucknow. Kim rejoins the Lama in an expedition to the hill country of the North and his destiny is left undecided - the life of an adventurer and the values of contemplation both attract him.

For further reading: Rudyard Kipling: A Bibliographical Catalogue by James McG. Stewart (1959); Rudyard Kipling: His Life and Work by Charles Carrington (1955, rev. 1970); The Readers' Guide to Rudyard Kipling's Work, ed. by Roger Lancelyn Green (1961); Kipling and His World by Kingsley Amis (1975); The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling by Angus Wilson (1977); Kipling: Interviews and Recollections, ed. by Harold Orel (1983); A Kipling Companion by Norman Page (1984); Rudyard Kipling by Martin Seymour-Smith (1989); Kipling's Vision by Sukeshi Kamara (1989); East and West: A Biography of Rudyard Kipling by Thomas N. Cross (1991); The Culture Shocks of Rudyard Kipling by W.J. Lohman (1990); The Poetry of Kipling by Ann Parry (1992); Narratives of Empire by Zohreh T. Sullivan (1993); Rudyard Kipling; A Study of the Short Fiction by Helen P. Bauer (1994); Ruduard Kipling; Author of the Jungle Books by Carol Greene et al (1995); Rudyard Kipling in Vermont by Stuart Murray (1997) - Museum: Bateman's, Burwash, East Sussex - Home of Kipling for over thirty years from 1902 until his death. Open from April to the end of October - See also: Michael Innes, Harry Martinson

SCHOOLBOY LYRICS, (1881)