|
Plain Tales From The Hills
''Plain Tales from the Hills'' (published 1888) is the first collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Out of its 40 stories, "eight-and-twenty", according to Kipling's ''Preface'', were initially published in the '' Civil and Military Gazette'' in Lahore, Punjab, British India between November 1886 and June 1887. "The remaining tales are, more or less, new." (Kipling had worked as a journalist for the ''CMG''—his first job—since 1882, when he was not quite 17.) The title refers, by way of a pun on "Plain" as the reverse of "Hills", to the deceptively simple narrative style; and to the fact that many of the stories are set in the Hill Station of Simla—the "summer capital of the British Raj" during the hot weather. Not all of the stories are, in fact, about life in "the Hills": Kipling gives sketches of many aspects of life in British India. The tales include the first appearances, in book form, of Mrs. Hauksbee, the policeman Strickland, and the Soldiers Three (Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. Kipling's works of fiction include the ''Jungle Book'' duology ('' The Jungle Book'', 1894; '' The Second Jungle Book'', 1895), ''Kim'' (1901), the '' Just So Stories'' (1902) and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888). His poems include " Mandalay" (1890), " Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), " The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If—" (1910). He is seen as an innovator in the art of the short story.Rutherford, Andrew (1987). General Preface to the Editions of Rudyard Kipling, in "Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies", by Rudyard Kipling. Oxford University Press. His children's books are classics; one critic noted "a versatile and luminous narrative gift".Rutherford, Andrew ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
False Dawn (short Story)
"False Dawn" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the first Indian edition of ''Plain Tales from the Hills'' in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection. The story is set on an unnamed 'station', or one of the posts where the British lived during the Raj. It is something of a backwater, "nearly a day's journey" from Lahore; and at the time of the story, "just before the final exodus of the Hill-goers", i.e. at the beginning of the hot season, there are under 20 British in residence. The story concerns Saumarez, a well-paid member of the Indian Civil Service who is "popular with women". He decides to propose marriage to one of a pair of sisters, Maud (the elder) and Edith Copleigh, who do everything together: the gossip of the station is that it will be to Maud, which would be an excellent match. She is prettier than her sister, though they are very alike in figure, look and voice. Saumarez arranges a moonlight picnic for six couples to provide a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
In The House Of Suddhoo
"In the House of Suddhoo" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. The story was published in the ''Civil and Military Gazette'' on April 30, 1886 under the title "Section 420, I.P.C." (Indian Penal Code). (Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code of 1860 lays down that anyone who cheats and dishonestly induces a person to hand over any valuable property shall be punished with imprisonment and a fine.) Its first appearance in book form was in the first Indian edition of ''Plain Tales from the Hills'' in 1888. It was the third of the stories that appear in that collection to be written Charles Allen, '' Kipling Sahib'', London, Little, Brown, 2007 "In the House of Suddhoo", therefore, is a story about deception. There are several layers of uncertainty in it. Suddhoo is a "very, very old" man who lets rooms in his house. The inhabitants are: on the ground floor, Bhagwan Dass, the grocer, and a man who claims to be a seal-cutter, together with their households; on the upper floor, Janoo (and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Arrest Of Lieutenant Golightly
"The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the ''Civil and Military Gazette'' on 23 November 1886 in book form, in the first Indian edition of ''Plain Tales from the Hills'' in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection. The story, published when Kipling was not quite 21 years old, is a well-crafted piece of writing about an essentially schoolboy version of ''schadenfreude'' - sheer pleasure, in this case, at seeing someone 'get his comeuppance' - with an element of slapstick. Lieutenant Golightly is a young officer in the British Army in India who prides himself on "looking like 'an Officer and a Gentleman'". According to John McGivering, in the Notes to this story on the Kipling Society's website, Golightly is certainly an officer, but not at all certainly a gentleman. It is clear that he takes too much care over his appearance, and dresses rather too flashily, wearing, as he is, a "delicate olive-green suit" with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kidnapped (short Story)
The Rudyard Kipling story "Kidnapped" was first published in the ''Civil and Military Gazette'' on March 21, 1887, in the first Indian edition of ''Plain Tales from the Hills'' (1888), and in subsequent editions of that collection. outline Kipling starts by announcing, "We ritishare a high-caste and enlightened race", but suggesting that arranged marriages are preferable to Western notions of love matches. "The Hindu notion - which is the Continental notion, which is the aboriginal notion - is sound", he writes. The story that follows is designed to illustrate this. It tells of Peythroppe, an exemplary member of the Indian Civil Service. "All his superiors spoke well of him because he knew how to hold his tongue and his pen at the proper times. There are, today, dds Kipling, in one of the characteristic effects of omniscience which he often used in his early twentiesonly eleven men in India who possess this secret; and they have all, with one exception, attained great honour and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Germ-Destroyer
"A Germ-Destroyer" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the '' Civil and Military Gazette'' on May 17, 1887, in the first Indian edition of ''Plain Tales from the Hills'' in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection. The story is one of Kipling's essays into farcical humour – with his frequent sardonic glances at the oddities of the way that the world works: here, the administrative world of the British Raj. He tells of the new Viceroy who has arrived with a Private Secretary called Wonder, who is trying to run the Indian Empire. ("All Simla agreed that there was 'too much Wonder and too little Viceroy in that rule.'") The farce of the story begins with the coincidence of two men who want to speak to the Viceroy. There is a monomaniac inventor called Mellish, who has little hope of an audience; and Mellishe, of Madras, who is rich, grandiloquent and important, and has the 'perquisite' of 'conferring with the Viceroy'. They are both staying at t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Taking Of Lungtungpen
"The Taking of Lungtungpen" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling which was first published in the ''Civil and Military Gazette'' on 11 April 1887. In book form, the story appeared in the first Indian edition of ''Plain Tales from the Hills'' in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection. Plot The story is about one of Kipling's three private soldiers, Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris, whose adventures are further related in his collection of short stories ''Soldiers Three'': Terence Mulvaney. This story tells "how Privit Mulvaney tuk the town av Lungtungpen", in his own words (Kipling represents him conventionally as an Irish speaker of English). Mulvaney, who continually blots his copybook (and loses promotions and good conduct badges from his habit of "wan big dhrink a month") is nevertheless a fine soldier. When he is patrolling Burma against dacoits with 24 young recruits under Lieutenant Brazenose, they capture a suspect. Mulvaney, with an interpreter, takes the pris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Conversion Of Aurelian McGoggin
"The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the ''Civil and Military Gazette'' on April 28, 1887, and first in book form in the first Indian edition of ''Plain Tales from the Hills'' in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection. Aurelian McGoggin is a young man fresh out to India. He is much influenced by the ideas of Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer. These names, along with the attitudes expressed by the narrator of the story, are sufficient to stamp McGoggin as that most undesirable type in the days of the Raj, an 'intellectual': in the story, he is mocked for his 'theories' and his "Creed". This appears mostly to consist in denying the existence of souls, and of God. (In one of Kipling's characteristically double-edged ways of looking ironically at the world he writes, after discoursing on the chain of command in British India: "If the Empress be not responsible to her Maker - if there is no Maker for her to be r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consequences (Kipling Story)
"Consequences" is the title of a short story by Rudyard Kipling, first published in the ''Civil and Military Gazette'' on December 9, 1886; and first in book form in the first Indian edition of ''Plain Tales from the Hills'' (1888), and in subsequent editions of that collection. The story is an illustration of the power of Mrs Hauksbee. (It is Kipling's third story about her in book form.) Tarrion, a "clever and amusing" young officer in an unfashionable regiment, longs for a permanent appointment in Simla. There he has the good fortune to do Mrs Hauksbee a favour (by forging a date on her invitation, so that she can attend the more prestigious Ball, rather than the smaller "dance" to which she has been sent an invitation by the Governor's A.-D.-C. with whom she has quarrelled). So she owes Tarrion a favour, and asks what she can do. He admits that "I haven't a square inch of interest here in Simla" - but says that he wants a permanent post in that most desirable Hill Station. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Other Man (short Story)
"The Other Man" is a short story by the British writer Rudyard Kipling, first published in the ''Civil and Military Gazette'' on 13 November 1886, in the first Indian edition of ''Plain Tales from the Hills'' in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection. The story, which is set in Simla, the Hill Station where the British used to spend their leaves during the hot weather, tells of Miss Gaurey, whom "her parents made ... marry Colonel Schreiderling ... not much more than 35 years her senior", who is a good match, if not particularly well off, and has lung-complaints which she nurses "seventeen days in each month". She had been secretly engaged to "the Other Man" ("I have forgotten his name"), who gets himself transferred away to an unhealthy Station. He also has bad health: intermittent fever, and a bad heart valve. Mrs Schreiderling, as she now is, never weeps, but begins to contract every infection on the Station. She becomes ugly - Schreiderling says so, and returns to b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Watches Of The Night
The phrase 'watches of the night' has been used since at least the Book of Mishna: "watches of the night": the night-time; watch originally each of the three or four periods of time, during which a watch or guard was kept, into which the night was divided by the Jews and Romans". The phrase occurs several places in the Old Testament (''Psalm'' 63:6; 119:148; ''Lamentation'' 2:19) and it is suggested in the New Testament (''Gospel of Mark'' 13:35). This has also been used in several works of literature as a cliché for what is also called 'the wee small hours', or 'the early morning', often with connotations of blackness (both of night and of the spirits) and depression (e. g. Longfellow wrote in ''The Cross of Snow'' (1879) "In the long, sleepless watches of the night"). Kipling uses this, along with a pun on the word 'watches': the story turns on two identical timepieces. "Watches of the Night" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the ''Civil and Military ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
His Chance In Life
"His Chance in Life" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the first Indian edition of ''Plain Tales from the Hills'' (1888), and in subsequent editions of that collection. The story is illuminating about Kipling's attitudes to race, which are less cut-and-dried than is often thought. Kipling is interesting, if not very detailed, on people of mixed race and the snobberies involved. (For some detail, see thKipling Society notes) The epigraph includes the line "'Love hath made this thing a Man'", which adumbrates one of Kipling's themes in this story, as in others. The 'love' in 'His Chance in Life' is that between Michele d'Cruze, who "looked down on natives as only a man with seven-eighths native blood in his veins can" and Miss Vezzis, similarly "from across the Borderline" "where the last drop of White blood ends and the full tide of black sets in". D'Cruze works as a telegrapher, and Miss Vezzis' Mamma won't let them marry till he earns at least 50 rupees ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
