The Best Of Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) was an English novelist, journalist, poet, and short-story writer most famous for his stories set in and related to colonial India. He innovated the art of short story writing and was one of the most popular writers in the U.K. during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A brand new collection of Kipling's best poetry, including “Gunga Din”, “If—“, “Recessional”, “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”, “The White Man's Burden”, “Mesopotamia”, “The Female of the Species”, “The Ballad of East and West”, “Epitaphs of the War”, “The Way Through the Woods”, “Mother O' Mine”, and many more. A fantastic collection not to be missed by poetry lovers and fans of Kipling's seminal work. Other notable works by this author include: “The Jungle Book” (1894), “Kim” (1901), and “The Man Who Would be King” (1888).

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.

Here, Kipling describes the life of Englishmen and women in the Indian Subcontinent, and explores the ugly truth of what went on beneath the appealing 'froth' of club life. Instantly rejected by many as being too harsh and too critical, it is in fact a brilliant portrait of Anglo-Indians, and their impact upon the provincial society of Simla.

Kim clicked round the self-registering turnstile; the old man followed and halted amazed. In the entrance-hall stood the larger figures of the Greco-Buddhist sculptures done, savants know how long since, by forgotten workmen whose hands were feeling, and not unskilfully, for the mysteriously transmitted Grecian touch. There were hundreds of pieces, friezes of figures in relief, fragments of statues and slabs crowded with figures that had encrusted the brick walls of the Buddhist stupas and viharas of the North Country and now, dug up and labelled, made the pride of the Museum. In open-mouthed wonder the lama turned to this and that, and finally checked in rapt attention before a large alto-relief representing a coronation or apotheosis of the Lord Buddha. The Master was represented seated on a lotus the petals of which were so deeply undercut as to show almost detached. Round Him was an adoring hierarchy of kings, elders, and old-time Buddhas. Below were lotus-covered waters with fishes and water-birds. Two butterfly-winged dewas held a wreath over His head; above them another pair supported an umbrella surmounted by the jewelled headdress of the Bodhisat...FROM THE BOOKS.

'Hear and attend and listen...' Rudyard Kipling is a supreme master of the short story in English and a poet of brilliant gifts. His energy and inventiveness poured themselves into every kind of tale, from the bleakest of fables to the richest of comedies, and he illuminated every aspect of human behaviour, of which he was a fascinated (and sometimes appalled) observer. This generous selection of stories and poems, first published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series, covers the full range of Kipling's career from the youthful volumes that brought him fame as the chronicler of British India, to the bittersweet fruits of age and bereavement in the aftermath of the First World War. It includes stories such as 'The Man who would be King', 'Mrs Bathurst', and 'Mary Postgate', and poems from Barrack-Room Ballads and other collections. In his introduction and notes Daniel Karlin addresses the controversial political engagement of Kipling's art, and the sources of its imaginative power. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

[Written for the gathering of survivors of the Indian Mutiny, Albert Hall, 1907.] To-day, across our fathers' graves, The astonished years reveal The remnant of that desperate host Which cleansed our East with steel. Hail and farewell! We greet you here, With tears that none will scorn— O Keepers of the House of old, Or ever we were born! One service more we dare to ask— Pray for us, heroes, pray, That when Fate lays on us our task We do not shame the Day!