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$0.99
21. Indian Tales
$0.99
22. Departmental Ditties & Barrack
 
23. JUST SO STORIES.Illustrated by
$0.99
24. Traffics and Discoveries
 
$9.95
25. Biography - Kipling, (Joseph)
$0.99
26. Soldiers Three
$0.99
27. The Bridge Builders
$0.99
28. Puck of Pook's Hill
 
29. The incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney
 
30. Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936: An
 
31. The Kipling papers: A list of
 
32. Life's Handicap: Being Stories
 
33. The Naulahka: A Story of West
$14.86
34. Rudyard Kipling: The Complete
 
$21.00
35. Rudyard Kipling: Something of
$11.00
36. Rudyard Kipling: Selected Poems
 
$14.13
37. The Works of Rudyard Kipling
$19.91
38. The Long Recessional: The Imperial
$7.14
39. Kipling: Poems (Everyman's Library
$5.53
40. The Man Who Would Be King (Art

21. Indian Tales
by Rudyard, 1865-1936 Kipling
Kindle Edition: Pages (2005-08-01)
list price: US$0.99 -- used & new: US$0.99
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Asin: B000JQV0Q8
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Editorial Review

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
Or ever the knightly years were gone With the old world to the grave, I was a king in Babylon And you were a Christian slave,- W.E. Henley. ... Read more


22. Departmental Ditties & Barrack Room Ballads
by Rudyard, 1865-1936 Kipling
Kindle Edition: Pages (2005-04-01)
list price: US$0.99 -- used & new: US$0.99
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Asin: B000JQUWQ2
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Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more


23. JUST SO STORIES.Illustrated by Barry Moser. Afterword by Peter Glassman.
by Rudyard [1865 - 1936].Moser, Barry - Illustrator. Kipling
 Hardcover: Pages (1996)

Asin: B000VYM7EW
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24. Traffics and Discoveries
by Rudyard, 1865-1936 Kipling
Kindle Edition: Pages (2006-01-01)
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Asin: B000JQV5ZY
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Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
No, it weren't, said McBride, at length, on the dirt, above the purloined weekly. "You're the aristocrat, Alf. Old Jerrold's givin' it you 'ot. You're the uneducated 'ireling of a callous aristocracy which 'as sold itself to the 'Ebrew financier. Meantime, Ducky"--he ran his finger down a column of assorted paragraphs--"you're slakin' your brutal instincks in furious excesses. Shriekin' women an' desolated 'omesteads is what you enjoy, Alf ..., Halloa! What's a smokin' 'ektacomb?" ... Read more


25. Biography - Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard (1865-1936): An article from: Contemporary Authors
by Gale Reference Team
 Digital: 24 Pages (2004-01-01)
list price: US$9.95 -- used & new: US$9.95
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Asin: B0007SD1LK
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Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 7062 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

  • Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
  • Family members
  • Education
  • Professional associations and honors
  • Employment
  • Writings, including books and periodicals
  • A description of the author's work
  • References to further readings about the author
... Read more

26. Soldiers Three
by Rudyard, 1865-1936 Kipling
Kindle Edition: Pages (2004-07-01)
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Asin: B000JQUHQC
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Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more


27. The Bridge Builders
by Rudyard, 1865-1936 Kipling
Kindle Edition: Pages (2006-02-26)
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Asin: B000JQU78A
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Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
There were labour contractors by the half-hundred - fitters and riveters, European, borrowed from the railway workshops, with, perhaps, twenty white and half-caste subordinates to direct, under direction, the bevies of workmen - but none knew better than these two, who trusted each other, how the underlings were not to be trusted. They had been tried many times in sudden crises - by slipping of booms, by breaking of tackle, failure of cranes, and the wrath of the river. ... Read more


28. Puck of Pook's Hill
by Rudyard, 1865-1936 Kipling
Kindle Edition: Pages (2005-06-03)
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Asin: B000JQTYWK
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars
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Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
The children were at the Theatre, acting to Three Cows as much as they could remember of Midsummer Night's Dream.Their father had made them a small play out of the big Shakespeare one, and they had rehearsed it with him and with their mother till they could say it by heart.They began when Nick Bottom the weaver comes out of the bushes with a donkey's head on his shoulders, and finds Titania, Queen of the Fairies, asleep. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

3-0 out of 5 stars Read it anyway, but don't give it to the kids without a warning.
Most of this book is worth reading as fantasy fiction, and all of it is worth studying as an example of late Victorian attitudes. Kipling didn't handle the transitions between "fantasy" and "reality" as well as modern writers who specialize in this sort of thing, but he did pretty well. However ... every time I read this to enjoy the adventures of Dan and Una, I trip up on the character of the medieval Jew who has an inborn, racial "talent for gold."While I don't usually think books should be updated or abridged for modern readers, I would consider excising just a few sentences of this one before letting a child read it.

I recall the comments of a Chinese-American reader who discovered that the beloved Louisa May Alcott used some demeaning stereotypes of Chinese people: Suddenly, one is cast out of the category of "reader" into the category of "other," and one never quite comes back.

5-0 out of 5 stars To be read over and over
It seems to be fashionable, in this politically correct time, to find fault with Rudyard Kipling.But Kipling was a great writer with big ideas and a big heart.He wrote "Puck of Pook's Hill" and "Rewards and Fairies" to share his love of his mother country with young readers.These books are a great introduction to English history.I find it hard to imagine a reader not falling in love with the land and people of this great country after reading "Puck of Pook's Hill".The curious reader will seek out more information on what happened during their favorite characters' times, possibly leading to a lifelong love of history and the inclination to explore the world through reading.

3-0 out of 5 stars Not for the History Challenged
I will not recommend this book to people who are not familiar with English history. I found myself stopping in the middle to research the characters because you cannot truly appreciate the book otherwise. This took away from the book's appeal. Someone who doesn't have an idea of who the characters are and what role they played during the period will undoubtedly be completely lost, because you cannot really glean all this from the book alone. Otherwise the book was well written, as Kipling always is. It is, however not a book everyone would enjoy.

4-0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Work of Children's Fantasy
As I am very interested in the historical and mythological nature of Puck (aka Robin Goodfellow), best known for his role as the mischief-making fairy in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, I found these works by Kipling to be invaluable.These two novels are not only an excellent presentation of Puck, but an insight to British history.While considered children's books, I would recommend them to any adult in search of light reading.Truly two wonderful works of literature.

5-0 out of 5 stars Face to face with English gods, ghosts, trees and history
Kipling's prose has a very special quality - quintissentially English, proud and very robust.

I asked a scholar of English and a Buddhist meditation teacher to recommend a good book for me and she thought briefly before mentioning this.

The poems in it are sometimes dated - the one about queen and country but this is a warm and pleasant read containing many important and esoteric aspects that few care to appreciate.

Ideal to communicate something about being a whole human being and this earthy realm with some of its hidden and ancient forces. ... Read more


29. The incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney / by Rudyard Kipling
by Rudyard (1865-1936) Kipling
 Hardcover: Pages (1899)

Asin: B000XK3SBU
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30. Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936: An exhibition in the British Library 6 November 1987 to 14 February 1988 (British Library exhibition notes)
by J Barr
 Unknown Binding: Pages (1987)

Asin: B0007BK1X8
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31. The Kipling papers: A list of papers of John Lockwood Kipling, 1837-1911, Joseph Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936, and some of Josephine, Elsie and John Kipling from Wimpole Hall, Cambridge
by University of Sussex
 Paperback: Pages (1979)

Isbn: 0850870143
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32. Life's Handicap: Being Stories of Mine Own People
by Rudyard, 1865-1936. Kipling
 Hardcover: Pages (1914)

Asin: B000OMRQB0
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33. The Naulahka: A Story of West and East. (First Edition)
by Rudyard (30 December 1865 - 18 January 1936) and Wolcott Balestier Kipling
 Hardcover: Pages (1892)

Asin: B000K1A4GE
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34. Rudyard Kipling: The Complete Verse
by Rudyard Kipling
Paperback: 756 Pages (2006-03-01)
list price: US$22.95 -- used & new: US$14.86
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Asin: 1856266699
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Editorial Review

Book Description

When Rudyard Kipling died in 1936, he was considered second to none as a poet. Years before, when Tennyson was Laureate, he had described the young Kipling as the “only one with divine fire.” His poetry is as varied as it is beautiful; among eulogies for the dead and celebrations of life are also character assassinations and comic masterpieces. Very often, the most powerful and evocative poems are the most personal and humane; together, they comprise a compelling and deeply moving portrait of the man.
... Read more

35. Rudyard Kipling: Something of Myself(Canto original series)
by Rudyard Kipling
 Paperback: 330 Pages (1991-06-28)
list price: US$34.99 -- used & new: US$21.00
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Asin: 052140584X
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Book Description
Rudyard Kipling's autobiography, Something of Myself, was the author's last work, but it has not received the serious attention it deserves. Thomas Pinney's edition of the work, supplemented by other autobiographical pieces, aims to change that. Professor Pinney, a leading textual editor currently engaged on Kipling's letters, has consulted the available source material relating to Something of Myself. He has constructed an outline of the book's composition; described the history of its publication; established a text and a set of variants; and given a critical account of the book's design and its main themes. His annotations to the work (and to the supplementary pieces) identify references and allusions, and provide a biographical context against which Kipling's selections, omissions, and distortions may clearly be seen. The extent to which Kipling's description of his life failed to match what actually happened is extraordinary. Two of the additional items presented here (Kipling's Indian diary of 1885 and the illustrations he made for his autobiographical story, 'Baa Baa, Black Sheep') are previously unpublished. Pinney shows how they, and other forms of autobiographical writing, reflect upon or complicate the narrative of Something of Myself. This carefully prepared edition sheds new light on Kipling as a man and writer. ... Read more


36. Rudyard Kipling: Selected Poems (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)
by Rudyard Kipling
Paperback: 228 Pages (1999-06)
list price: US$11.00 -- used & new: US$11.00
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Asin: 0140184775
Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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Book Description
Rudyard Kipling's reputation as Britain's unofficial Poet Laureate has obscured the true nature of his achievement. Far from being an Establishment figure, he was a fiercely independent poet, opposed to the dominant political and literary leanings of his age. His poems range from exhilarating celebrations of British expansion, through vivid character sketches of soldiers and seamen, to political invective, artistic manifestos, and enchanting poems for children. In this new selection, Kipling's poems are presented in chronological order to reveal the scope and development, as well as the originality, of his work. Opening with Kipling's satirization of the British in India, it closes with his warning against the rise of Nazi Germany. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

5-0 out of 5 stars "If" is included
Perhaps the above reveiw was for a different book of Kipling's poems. There are no illustrations besides the cover art, and Kipling's famous "If" poem is thankfully included. The book is lightweight andsmall enough to fit in a purse or briefcase easily. The cover is pleasingand the margins inside are generous. In all, well laid out and good to havearound.

2-0 out of 5 stars Kiplings Poems...
I thought it was a poor selsction, without his most famous, "If" included. The illustrations were like those from a newspaper, and it's overall content was not great. ... Read more


37. The Works of Rudyard Kipling
by Rudyard Kipling
 Hardcover: Pages (1995-08)
list price: US$24.95 -- used & new: US$14.13
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Asin: 0681103744
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars
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Customer Reviews (2)

4-0 out of 5 stars Volume 2?
The cover reads "The Works of Rudyard Kipling, Volume II, Rudyard Kipling. The table of contents lists these five sections:

Volume V: Plain Tales from the Hills
Volume VI: The Light that Failed
Volume VII: The Story of the Gadsbys
Volume VIII: From Mine Own People

The "Search inside" link appears to show the Volume I book. It is incorrectly listed as a previous version. I haven't been able to find Volume I for sale and I don't know if there is a Volume III.

This is an odd edition.There are no page numbers in the ToC, no preface, no index, no cover art. The plain tome resembles a computer printout that was typeset and well bound. I guess you could say that it was pure Kipling though.

5-0 out of 5 stars Enchanting
Rudyard Kipling has an amazing animal sense. He depicted the characters well and enchanted you to continue reading by keeping you in suspense about Mowgli. This is a must read book. ... Read more


38. The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling
by David Gilmour
Paperback: 368 Pages (2003-06-11)
list price: US$29.00 -- used & new: US$19.91
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Asin: 0374528969
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars
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Editorial Review

Book Description

“Readable and reliable . . . [Gilmour’s] assessment of the political background of Kipling’s writings is exemplary.” —Earl L. Dachslager, Houston Chronicle

David Gilmour’s superbly nuanced biography of Rudyard Kipling, now available in paperback, is the first to show how the great writer’s life and work mirrored the trajectory of the British Empire, from its zenith to its final decades. His great poem “Recessional” celebrated Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 and his last poems warned of the dangers of Nazism, while Kipling himself, an icon of the empire, was transformed from an apostle of success to a prophet of national decline. As Gilmour makes clear, Kipling’s mysterious and enduring works deeply influenced the way his readers saw both themselves and the British Empire, and they continue to challenge our own generation.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

4-0 out of 5 stars Kipling Re-considered
At a time when the "politically correct" holds sway in much of the media for intellectuals and all too much of academia, Rudyard Kipling is persona non grata -- the author of charming Victorian children's tales, but irredeemably tainted as an advocate and apologist for the British Empire and its subjugation of so many blacks and browns in the world.This biography of Kipling shows that the popular image de jour of Kipling is oversimplified and, at bottom, unfair and wrong.

David Gilmour deliberately focuses on the "imperial" Kipling, or the political (as opposed to the literary) aspect of his life.Of course, it is impossible to cleave Kipling into two selves, one political and the other literary.No one can be so compartmentalized, but Kipling resists it more than most because he was so unabashedly a political writer.And Gilmour chooses to emphasize that fact by exploring Kipling's politics and his view of the British Empire, as well as his role in celebrating it and then mourning its imminent demise (Kipling died before World War II and the death throes of empire).As Gilmour puts it in his preface:"This is the first volume to chronicle Kipling's political life, his early role as apostle of the Empire, the embodiment of imperial aspiration, and his later one of the prophet of national decline."

Gilmour achives his objective quite well.His Kipling -- as I believe is true of the actual Kipling -- was NOT a jingoistic rascist (although, to be sure, certain lines of his taken as they say out of context could be stretched and cited for the opposite conclusion). Yes, Kipling was a Victorian Englishman who grew up amidst, and believed in, the glory of the British Empire.But, as Gilmour persuasively writes, the empire Kipling touted and valued was a civilizing, even humanitarian, force -- an empire of "peace and justice, quinine and canals, railways and vaccinations".His model of empire had no place for the missionary zeal to transform all the Empire's subjects into brown or black (depending on their class) fish-and-chippers or public-school-educated Church-of-Englanders.Moreover, to Kipling, it was the altruistic responsibility of the wealthy, civilized haves of the world (principally Great Britain and the United States) to relieve suffering and improve the lot in life of the myriad have nots.

Gilmour's biography shows, without explicit lecturing, that Kipling was not a stock "stiff-upper-lip" Victorian cardboard cut-out; he was human, with weaknesses he sought both to overcome and to mask, and with a strength of character that ultimately more than redeems him.

Gilmour does not ignore, but he does not dwell on, the literary side of Kipling.For that, the reader must go elsewhere.But for a sensitive yet objective picture of "Kipling as a figurehead of his country and his age", I don't know where else one should or would care to look.

5-0 out of 5 stars Overlooked Today, But a Towering Figure in His Time
Rudyard Kipling, according to David Gilmour's authoritative 'The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling' was a first-class political hater and author of children's books, as well as the virtual embodiment of the British Empire. Kipling was considered the Imperial Laureate, although he would have refused the post had it existed as he did all government posts - not in his line at all.

Kipling lived much of the first half of his life in the Empire - he spent his early years in India, except for a horrid stretch when he was boarded back in England by his parents who stayed in British India, and later lived off-and-on in South Africa. Kipling loved the Empire and its civilizing mission (up to a point - he did not favor Christian religious proselytizing), but oddly was not that fond of England or the English.

Gilmour paints a portrait of Kipling as a thorough-going reactionary, a pessimist, a virulent opponent of women's suffrage, Irish Home Rule, nearly all politicians (he especially hated Liberals, but also accused Winston Churchill of `political whoring'), trade unions, and imperial wavering of any kind.

'The Long Recessional' (the title refers both to his poem written for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897 and the decline of the Empire) is not so much a history of Kipling's literary works as it is his leading role in promoting the Empire through his literature. Readers seeking detailed literary analyses had best look elsewhere, but should read this book first to understand what it was that Kipling was so all-fired angry about most of the time. Kipling was something of a negative "prophet"; he saw the coming decline of the Empire and viewed as willful surrender, he saw the coming Great War and watched his countrymen fail to prepare or take a firm stand against 'the Hun', and he saw the coming Second World War and the repeated lack of preparation (he died before that war actually occurred).

Kipling suffered great personal unhappiness from the death of his first daughter at age 6, to a seemingly unhappy marriage with Kipling as the henpecked husband and the death of his son in one of those insane headlong infantry assaults on the German trenches at the Battle of Loos. Kipling's dour personality in most of his last quarter-century of life may to some extent be attributed to a misdiagnosed (and thus mistreated) duodenal ulcer that caused him great pain - once it was correctly diagnosed in 1933, Kipling's pain departed and his personality revived.

Kipling's writings were enormously influential in his time, probably to an extent difficult for the modern reader to grasp given over as we are to the visual and the aural. After the Boer War he turned his pen more and more toward political ends and a bitter-tipped pen it was. Today Kipling is more remembered for his children's classics such asThe Jungle Books (Signet Classics). His Plain Tales from the Hills explores India's impact on the British who lived there and in particular the soldiers who sometimes fought and died there.

Salmon Rushdie has summarized it best when he stated, "There will always be plenty in Kipling that I will find difficult to forgive; but there is also enough truth in these stories to make them impossible to ignore."

Gilmour brings Kipling back to life for some 300 pages; 'The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling' is a rewarding reading experience about a man mostly overlooked today, but of towering importance in his time.

2-0 out of 5 stars could be much better
I've always enjoyed Kipling's poetry, and have long known that a close reading and an adequate understanding of his writings belie the less pleasant things that habitual hand-wringers and apostles of political correctness have to say about him.Hence my willingness to read this book.

This biography enumerates the stations of Kipling's life: he grew up in India, a country he never stopped loving, indeed it was Hindi and not English that was his mother tongue.After a childhood in India came boarding school in England, life as a journalist in India, becoming the unofficial poet laureate of the soldier and Empire, friendships with leading politicians, marriage to an American, and disillusionment with politics and politicians after the First World War, in which his son died in his first "battle."In this book Kipling does not come across as the ogre that some make him out to be, but he does come across as very close-minded, as a man who understood the art of poetry very well, but things such as the Irish and their grievances not at all.

All the same, I found this book to be a disappointment.Ideas were rarely fully developed; when poems are discussed, only short passages are quoted.Kipling's belief that war with the hated Germans was inevitable is uncritically seen as a sign of prophecy; perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy of his times and class would me more accurate.Nor are Ireland and Kipling's fire and brimstone solutions for Ireland's troubles described with any nuance.I don't think that the author more than scrapes the surface of the topics he described.Before I draw my conclusions on Kipling, I intend to read at least another book.

Unless you're a high-school student who has to write a report on Kipling, I wouldn't recommend this book to you.

5-0 out of 5 stars Brilliant study of a brilliant man
Few have doubted Kipling's literary genius but for much of the 20th century progressive opinion has caricatured him as the bard of racism, the poet of savagery, the versifier of militarism. Gilmour focuses on Kipling's complex relationship with the British Empire, and shows that these caricatures do not do justice to the poet's nuanced views. To take only one example, Kipling was perfectly aware of the foibles of his fellow Anglo-Indians, and he often paid tribute to the nobility of ordinary Indians. But he was also aware that British rule over the Subcontinent was a great force for peace and stability. The Bloomsbury set jeered his views but he was proven tragically right after Indian independence, which resulted in a bloodbath. Let us hope that Kipling is not proven even more correct in the event of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan.

5-0 out of 5 stars Examines not only his writing, but his world
Rudyard Kipling was both a great writer and a representative figure of the British Empire, dabbling in both politics and exploration and winning the Nobel Prize in literature. This biography is the first to examine not only his writing, but his world: The Long Recessional considers the history of his times and provides a lively, revealing probe of the man's changes. ... Read more


39. Kipling: Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets)
by Rudyard Kipling
Hardcover: 256 Pages (2007-10-16)
list price: US$12.50 -- used & new: US$7.14
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Asin: 0307267113
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Editorial Review

Book Description
Beloved for his fanciful and engrossing children’s literature, controversial for his enthusiasm for British imperialism, Rudyard Kipling remains one of the most widely read writers of Victorian and modern English literature. In addition to writing more than two dozen works of fiction, including Kim and The Jungle Book, Kipling was a prolific poet, composing verse in every classical form from the epigram to the ode.

Kipling’s most distinctive gift was for ballads and narrative poems in which he drew vivid characters in universal situations, articulating profound truths in plain language. Yet he was also a subtle, affecting anatomist of the human heart, and his deep feeling for the natural world was exquisitely expressed in his verse. He was shattered by World War I, in which he lost his only son, and his work darkened in later years but never lost its extraordinary vitality.

All of these aspects of Kipling’s poetry are represented in this selection, which ranges from such well-known compositions as “Mandalay” and “If” to the less-familiar, emotionally powerful, and personal epigrams he wrote in response to the war. ... Read more


40. The Man Who Would Be King (Art of the Novella series, The)
by Rudyard Kipling
Paperback: 80 Pages (2005-06)
list price: US$9.00 -- used & new: US$5.53
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Asin: 0976140705
Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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Book Description

The rugged mountains of 19th-century Afghanistan serve as the backdrop for this humorous and action-packed tale of two happy-go-lucky Britons who take over a remote kingdom. The colorful inhabitants and beautiful prose enrich a beautifully powerful ending.

This beautifully packaged series of classic novellas includes the works of masterful writers. Inexpensive and collectible, they are often the first single-volume publications of these classic tales, offering a closer look at this underappreciated literary form and providing a fresh take on the world's most celebrated authors.
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Also includes "The Phanton Rickshaw." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

5-0 out of 5 stars Kipling'sMasonic parable of the dangers of colonisation
"The Man Who Would Be King" has not unreasonably been used to title many a compendium of Kipling's short stories, since it not only ranks as one of his best, but is also so well known because of the John Huston movie marvellously interpreted by Michael Caine, Sean Connery and Christopher Plummer.

The short novel first appeared in the "Phantom Rickshaw" in 1888 but was again collected in "Wee Willie Winkie and other stories" in 1895. Kipling for this work was inspired by the travels of Josiah Harlan, an American adventurer who claimed the title of Prince of Ghor in 1840 thanks to the military force he lead into Afghanistan (Read the instructive "The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan" by Ben McIntyre).

The story is built with a technique often utilized by Kipling of the picture and frame and is in itself a parable with many possible interpretations, as parables often are. A journalist of a local Indian paper meats a loafer on a train. The man, an ex-military asks him to contact a friend of his in a later date to tell him that he can't meet him presently. After a short time the two friends visit the journalist and tell him they intend to conquer an empire for themselves. Again after two years only one gets back and narrates the adventures the two have been through, that have ended with the death of one of them.

The frame of the story is Kipling's present day India with an established administrative empire and the journalist is evidently Kipling, the picture is Dravot and Carnehan's adventure in Kafiristan, the remote Afghan province they conquer for a brief period. The picture represents the early ages of the making of the British Empire that had relied on adventurers, dreamers and military men possessing superior technologies (arms) compared to the natives. The most evident moral of the parable is that once the English neglect their moral duty towards the native populations there is no sense in the permanence of the Empire and it is destined to fail, but many others can be hypothesized. Many critics have identified this story as a form of disillusionment of Kipling with the society he was living in at that time, while instead in his later life he was known to sustain British Imperialism.

One aspect that often goes unnoticed in this short story is the importance Kipling (a mason himself) gives to the underground tentacles of the secret Masonic network that consented the British influence in India and in European politics. If you happen to watch the John Huston film this is made very clear.

The novella is full of allusions, recalls, citations of different realities and it would take to long to analyse it in depth even though this effort will surely reward the reader. The "Man Who Would Be King" remains one of the milestones of the collective imaginary of our modern world where colonisation is far from forgotten.

1-0 out of 5 stars Worst Ever Reader!
We rushed out and bought this new version. I don't think it's a computer, but she's almost that bad! For a great unabridged read try the 1991 Dercum Audio edition read by William Barker who adapts the character voices adroitly, showing an uncanny ear for the British aristocrats. Although not the latest high tech I for one will stick to the best!

1-0 out of 5 stars Great Book, Computer Reading It
This is a great story, I highly recommend it. However, this recording is a digital voice reading it, so it completely takes away from the story. I love audiobooks, but this one was unlistenable. It was like having bonzibuddy read hamlet.

3-0 out of 5 stars Perhaps a lesson for today's men-who-would-be-kings?
Kipling's critics have long been regarded him as the "bard of imperialism," but the title is telling of his work. In many of his stories he has promoted the virtues of the Queen's empire and created marvelous tales about the adventures of explorers.However, in The Man Who Would be King, Kipling complicates his popular themes by implying a distinction between the cavalier, enterprising upstarts of early empire and the more entrenched, administrative empire that he personally knew.

The Man Who Would be King intersects the lives of the narrator (a stand-in for Kipling himself), the responsible and respectable journalist, with Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan, two adventurous misfits. Through the narrator, Kipling expresses nostalgia toward the earlier days of the empire, represented by Dravot and Carnehan. However, this fondness is tempered by the view that the attitude of the early entrepreneur-imperialists was naïve to the realities and responsibilities of administering an empire, embodied in the narrator. This distinction is seen in the cautionary attitude that Kipling takes toward Dravot and Carnehan during their first encounters, the rapt attention that the narrator pays to Carnehan's recounting of his adventure, and the ultimately tragic ends which both Dravot and Carnehan meet.

Dravot and Carnehan are caricatures, to be sure, of the enterprising spirit that so many British in India came armed with, each in search of their personal fortune and adventure. In his first meeting with the narrator, Carnehan declares, "If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than the crows where they'd get their next day's rations, it isn't seventy millions of revenue the land would be paying-it's seven hundred millions." Of course, this is a persuasive technique that Carnehan uses to build camaraderie with the narrator, and it appears to be somewhat successful. The narrator seems enchanted with the attitude of his companion, prefacing their encounter with "he was a wanderer and a vagabond like myself."Of course, we know that the narrator is a newspaperman who spends long nights laying type for the morning paper, not vagabonding around, however he inserts this to demonstrate a connection with this wanderer.

Following this encounter, the narrator is approached at his office by the two who hope to gain basic information to allow them to go "away to be Kings." However, the narrator is instantly concerned that they are hatching a foolish plan and exclaims, "You'll be cut to pieces before you're fifty miles across the border," and "You two are fools...You'll be turned back at the Frontier or cut up the minute you set foot in Afghanistan." He is unable to dissuade them from their journey and the next day sees them off at the local bazaar, still expressing concern: "`Have you got everything you want,' I asked, overcome with astonishment." He hears little else of the duo for the next three years, and assumes them to be lost causes in their journey.

Unexpectedly, though, the unrecognizably disfigured Carnehan interrupts and recounts his story for the rapt narrator at his desk one night three years later.Perhaps partly because of his disbelief and partly due to his fascination with adventure, the narrator listens, attentive to the final detail, to the tragic tale of Peachey and Dravot. At the end, Carnehan produced from his bag "the dried, withered head of Daniel Dravot!" and then "shambled out of the office." The narrator finds the tattered figure on the street, and shows his loyalty to his fallen brother by driving "him to the nearest missionary for eventual transfer to the Asylum."

The ending of the story is particularly filled with allusions to Kipling's feelings on the matter of the British Empire.The adventurous Dravot and Carnehan represented an anachronistic attitude of the Empire that, fortunately or unfortunately, did not belong in the Empire of Kipling's day. They attempted their adventure, and though they were successful for a short time, they ultimately failed in their endeavors. The narrator, as the modernized colonizer, knew that tragedy was their fate and saw it as his duty to warn his brothers, and in the end care for them.This interpretation does allow for the sympathy that the narrator demonstrates when meeting with Carnehan on the train and when absorbing the details of their journey.

A slightly different analysis of Kipling's attitude suggests that Kipling has become disillusioned with the Empire as a whole.This puts Dravot and Carnehan as the embodiment of all colonizers, not simply earlier ones, and the narrator as a wizened British subject who has learned from the mistakes of his past. He cautions and cares for his misguided brethren, and knows that they will meet tragic fates, but he is still captured by the nostalgia of past days of enterprise and adventure. He longs for those days, but has the benefit of hindsight to know the sad outcome of adventurous hubris. In this interpretation, the crowned head of Dravot represents the caution to the current crown of the fate they may face if they do not reverse their imperial ambitions.

In either analysis, Kipling's adventure tale appears to be a sober warning to any "would-be" kings, be they British or otherwise. Ironically, this tale may be rather timely to Americans in light of the current military involvements in Afghanistan and Iraq. Kipling would likely, though sadly, be vindicated in the fact that history does repeat itself.

3-0 out of 5 stars I guess you had to be there
As a reluctant student in that oxymoronic high school class, Poetry Appreciation for Teenage Males, I was surprised to rather enjoy the verses of Rudyard Kipling. Now, decades later, I thought I'd investigate his prose - these 13 tales in RUDYARD KIPLING: THE BEST SHORT STORIES, written during the period 1889 -1904.

Kipling had an affinity for the common British soldier and civil servant standing duty on the far edges of Empire. Thus, several chapters feature such of the Queen's own, usually soldiers relating cautionary stories regarding relationships with women. (This is assuredly fertile ground for bivouac conversation, even today.) However, the thick dialect which the author faithfully re-creates in his hero of the moment sometimes makes for heavy going.

The author's writing style includes the occasional trick of animating animals and inanimate objects with a human voice and personality. Sometimes this worked for me, sometimes not. The former was best exemplified by "The Ship That Found Herself", a clever instruction about the structural parts of a steamship. Less entertaining was "The Maltese Cat", a dialogue among polo ponies during a big match. Perhaps if I'd understood the game better, or cared, it might have gone over more successfully.

On a scale of one star to five, I awarded no single story more than four. The least appreciated effort was "The Record of Badalia Herodsfoot", a depressing narrative set in the London slums that illustrates the adage, "No good deed goes unpunished." Of the several fours, my favorite was "They", a poignant ghost story set in England's southern Downs that would've made, with a little tweaking, a good episode for the old TWILIGHT ZONE television series. However, even the former contained an astute observation worth noting here:

"... if people did not die so untidily, most men, and all women, would commit at least one murder in their lives."

While Kipling is undeniably a great storyteller, I suspect that his writings had a greater appeal to readers contemporary with the author than those in the current millennium. Perhaps time has passed them by. One had to be there, especially to appreciate both Britain's paternal yet condescending attitude towards the subject denizens of its colonial possessions and once-new technologies that are today considered quaintly antiquated.

I'm glad I took the time to read this book, but am also happy to be finished and moving on to the next. ... Read more


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