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Who was Rudyard Kipling? Poet and Storywriter.
Date and Place of Birth: 30th December 1865, Bombay, India.
Family Background: Son of John Lockwood Kipling an artist and scholar and Curator of the
Lahore Museum in India. Nephew of the wife of Sir Edward Burne-Jones and the
Mother of Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister.
Education:
United Services College, Westward Ho! Devon
Chronology:
1882: After
being sent to England to receive his education he returned to India and took
a job as a journalist on the "Civil and Military Gazette" newspaper
in Lahore.
1886:
"Departmental Ditties was published in his newspaper. He also began to
write for the Gazette's sister paper the "Pioneer" in Allahabad.
1889: He
returned to England hoping to repeat the literary success that he had
achieved already in India.
1890: His
first novel "Light that failed" was not well received.
1892: "Barrack
Room Ballads" did achieve success. Set out on a world trip on his honeymoon
with his new wife and then returned to her home town of Brattleboro in
Vermont with the intention of settling there.
1894:
"The Jungle Book", written in America, established his fame in
England, but still many people here found his poetry distasteful as it
smacked of jingoism.
1896: After
quarreling with Carrie's brother the Kiplings came to settle in England.
1897: Moved to
the Grange in Rottingdean in Sussex.
1899: Death of
his daughter Josephine on a visit to the United States.
1901: Publication
of the best selling novel "Kim".
1902: Bought
house called Bateman's at Burwash, Sussex, which was his home until his
death.
1906:
Publication of "Puck of Pook's Hill".
1907: Awarded
the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1914: The War
Propaganda Bureau arranged for Kipling to make a visit to Britain's army
camps to increase morale.
1915: The
Kipling's, who had tried to warn the nation to be prepared for the First
World War lost their son John fighting with the Irish Guards in the Battle of
Loos at the age of eighteen. He visited the Western Front himself and wrote
about his experiences in "France at War." He was also commissioned
to write a pamphlet on "The Royal Navy called the Fringes of the
Fleet".
1920's/30's: Much
of his later writings have been described as proto-modernist and his
popularity fell further out of favour with English readers in general.
Written Works:
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1886: "Departmental Ditties".
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1887: "Plain Tales from the
Hills". "Soldiers Three".
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1889: "From Sea to Sea".
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1890:
"The Light That Failed".
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1891: "Life's Handicap".
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1892: "Barrack Room Ballads".
"Naulakha" (published with Wolcott Balestier)
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1893: "Many Inventions".
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1894: "The Jungle Book".
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1895: "The Second Jungle Book".
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1896: "The Seven Seas".
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1897: "Captains Courageous".
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1898: "The Day's Work".
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1901: "Kim".
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1902: "Just So Stories".
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1903: "The Five Nations".
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1905:
"They".
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1906: "Puck of Pook's Hill".
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1907: "The Brushwood Boy".
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1909: "Actions and Reactions".
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1917: "A Diversity of
Creatures". "The Years Between".
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(1937): "Something of Myself". (Autobiography)
Marriage:
1892 to Carrie (Caroline) Balestier the sister of his American friend and
writer Wolcott Balestier.
Places of Interest:
SUSSEX:
Museum
of the Rottingdean Preservation Society, the Grange, Rottingdean . Bateman's,
Burwash.
Date and Place of Death: 18th January 1936, London, England.
Age at Death: 70.
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