Rudyard Kipling Books

The stories are wonderful. I've read a decent amount of Kipling and am always pleased to find more of them. This particular collection contains a bunch of really charming tales that range from funny through tragic. These types of short stories remind me why I love Kipling so much. As with all Kipling, it's worth noting that he was a product of his time and some of his writing could be considered offensive to the modern reader.

This particular Kindle version is quite good with proper formatting and few if any typos. My only complaint (and only reason that this lacks a full 5 stars) is the lack of hyper-links in the Table of Contents. This makes it very difficult to jump to specific short stories.

A fine collection of extremely well-crafted stories.
But these pages are crammed with racism, with remarks on the worthlessness of a native indian's life, their stupidity and their weakness.
One of the stories starts with "we are a high-caste and enlightened race", any man who shows interest in the ways of life of the natives is ridiculed over pages and the only remark on the death of a native child is: "They have no stamina, these brats."
Well written, but disgusting.

I bought this book to recall the halcyon days of my secondary schooling in the years 1957 - 61. Then the book was an assigned text for all students in English in New Zealand. The language and the concepts were then frankly beyond the comprehension of 15 year olds. As I grew older, I became aware of the position Kipling held in the Late Victorian era, and the period following the end of the First World War.

I came to understand a little of what the British Empire meant in those times, and the great debt owed by the world to the British Army which subdued Iraq, Pakistan, and the Indian Continent for almost 200 years.

Without the benefit of the bomb, with a tiny armed service, and a desire to provide fair and equitable government, the Raj governed fearlessly through the efforts of the thirds sons of many of the great English Families, while the fourth sons provided the humanity of the Church. Patterns we could well emulate again today!

This was bread and butter to Kipling. In his early years as a huge supporter of the system, as a spiritualist after the death of his son in the First World War, and in his later years as the designer of the huge Military Cemetaries established in France and Belgium after the War to the Empire's dead, he truly became in his own words a "Builder of the Silent Cities".

In 2006, the concepts of his writings are remote from many. In terms of the trials of people, and their attempts to rise over their circumstances through a sense of duty and moral propriety, Kipling's works are without peer. For those starting out to discover him, start with "Stalky and Company", and move to this book, and his other works as extended learning. I hope you come to love his simple characters as I have, and that your School System, and its weird sense of Boyhood Literature does not destroy the desire to read Kipling until your late 60's

This book has brought great joy to someone in the prime of life, and brings back some important memories of Scouts, Church and Honour in a time when these are so sadly lacking.

Rudyard Kipling writes concisely and with great insight on a wide range of issues. With each story only taking up a few pages the depth of characterisation is superb. 'The gate of one-hundred sorrows' is one of the finest short stories ever written.

I believe Kipling was wildly popular in his day. This collection of stories about English life in India may have entranced the masses and sold a lot of newspapers in the first decade of the 20th century, but in the context of almost exactly a hundred years later, they have lost most of their shine. While Kipling might have been the foremost raconteur of British India, compared to great short story writers like Chekhov, de Maupassant, or Twain, he comes across today as coy and contrived. Certain phrases make their appearance in far too many of the tales, for example: "Once there was a....but that's another story." Cute kids, the wisdom of animals, the wiles of the fair sex, the unfathomable nature of "natives", gruff officers, perfect ladies, the one-dimensional earthiness of the common soldier---these are stories filled with stereotypes. Kipling's stories may hold your interest for a short time and you can wonder at the change in taste that has occurred between 1907, when he published these, and today. In many tales, Kipling depicts the lifestyle among the higher echelons of the British Raj, but only through a veil of irony or humor. A regular topic is the struggle for social status among the British; efforts to short circuit the pecking order and reversals suffered thereby. People marrying "beneath them" or trying to marry "above them" are often found here. Though people still refer to Kipling as "a writer about India", it is still true that he wrote about his compatriots, not about India. The two or three tales with Indian characters who are anything other than servants lack any depth. Even the pathos-filled "Story of Muhammad Din", which shows understanding, ultimately deals with illness as something inevitable in India---there are no questions as to why death comes to small children so frequently. Overall, Kipling provides a certain local color to British literature of the late 19th and early 20th century, but cannot be regarded as a great British writer on the level of Maugham, Conrad, Lawrence, Forster or Greene because he lacks broader humanity, deep thought, and universal vision.

I had the impression the stories would be good to read to a child, they weren't.

As these stories were written in another era they may not seem PC by today's standards. However, some of them are amusing and can be retold with subtle editing if necessary.

I cannot speak highly enough about this wonderful book. It is meant to be read just as it is written and I started reading it to my twin boys when they were 4 years old. Immersing them in such beautiful language is such a gift. They never get tired of hearing the same stories over and over, especially "The Elephant's Child" with his satiable curtiosity! I particularly like this edition of it, because the illustrations are vibrant and interesting, without the book costing a fortune. Each story is very creative and I don't find it offensive at all. It was written in 1900, for crying out loud, and those kids turned out just fine, if you ask me. When your child gets to the stage where they never stop asking questions, you will especially enjoy the accompanying poem at the end of Elephant's Child. This is an absolute must have in any home library. When you read it, just make sure you use your funny voices to make the characters come alive.

I don't understand the other comment about not being appropriate for children because my son loved it! A friend gave me this book when my son was 3 years old. I went through it first, to see what the stories were like, before reading any to him. He was used to all the Disney stories up until then, but really liked the stories in this book. This was back in 1989 and 1990. His favorite was "How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin." Unfortunately, I sold the book when I moved so now have to buy a new copy that I will give to a friend having a baby. My son still remembers this book and how much fun it was to listen to the stories.

When I married, Mother gave me our family copy of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories which had scribbles in it from more than one of my five siblings. I don't remember reading it as a child, to be honest, but it was there. When our first two children were old enough to sit still for a story, my husband sat them in his lap and read them "The Elephant's Child" from this volume. After they squirmed a bit, he assigned acting parts to one or the other of them at various times, and by the time the third son came along they were fighting over acting parts. With voice inflection and movement to accompany the reading, they understood this story more and more, and they began to beg for more story time. He added first one and then another of the stories in this classic. Now our second son and his wife have had their first child, and for his first Christmas as a parent we were delighted to give him him own copy, and the two new parents are continuing the tradition. Bravo, Rudyard Kipling, and bravo, Daddy

The stories are wonderful. I've read a decent amount of Kipling and am always pleased to find more of them. This particular collection contains a bunch of really charming tales that range from funny through tragic. These types of short stories remind me why I love Kipling so much. As with all Kipling, it's worth noting that he was a product of his time and some of his writing could be considered offensive to the modern reader.

This particular Kindle version is quite good with proper formatting and few if any typos. My only complaint (and only reason that this lacks a full 5 stars) is the lack of hyper-links in the Table of Contents. This makes it very difficult to jump to specific short stories.

A fine collection of extremely well-crafted stories.
But these pages are crammed with racism, with remarks on the worthlessness of a native indian's life, their stupidity and their weakness.
One of the stories starts with "we are a high-caste and enlightened race", any man who shows interest in the ways of life of the natives is ridiculed over pages and the only remark on the death of a native child is: "They have no stamina, these brats."
Well written, but disgusting.

I bought this book to recall the halcyon days of my secondary schooling in the years 1957 - 61. Then the book was an assigned text for all students in English in New Zealand. The language and the concepts were then frankly beyond the comprehension of 15 year olds. As I grew older, I became aware of the position Kipling held in the Late Victorian era, and the period following the end of the First World War.

I came to understand a little of what the British Empire meant in those times, and the great debt owed by the world to the British Army which subdued Iraq, Pakistan, and the Indian Continent for almost 200 years.

Without the benefit of the bomb, with a tiny armed service, and a desire to provide fair and equitable government, the Raj governed fearlessly through the efforts of the thirds sons of many of the great English Families, while the fourth sons provided the humanity of the Church. Patterns we could well emulate again today!

This was bread and butter to Kipling. In his early years as a huge supporter of the system, as a spiritualist after the death of his son in the First World War, and in his later years as the designer of the huge Military Cemetaries established in France and Belgium after the War to the Empire's dead, he truly became in his own words a "Builder of the Silent Cities".

In 2006, the concepts of his writings are remote from many. In terms of the trials of people, and their attempts to rise over their circumstances through a sense of duty and moral propriety, Kipling's works are without peer. For those starting out to discover him, start with "Stalky and Company", and move to this book, and his other works as extended learning. I hope you come to love his simple characters as I have, and that your School System, and its weird sense of Boyhood Literature does not destroy the desire to read Kipling until your late 60's

This book has brought great joy to someone in the prime of life, and brings back some important memories of Scouts, Church and Honour in a time when these are so sadly lacking.

Rudyard Kipling writes concisely and with great insight on a wide range of issues. With each story only taking up a few pages the depth of characterisation is superb. 'The gate of one-hundred sorrows' is one of the finest short stories ever written.

I believe Kipling was wildly popular in his day. This collection of stories about English life in India may have entranced the masses and sold a lot of newspapers in the first decade of the 20th century, but in the context of almost exactly a hundred years later, they have lost most of their shine. While Kipling might have been the foremost raconteur of British India, compared to great short story writers like Chekhov, de Maupassant, or Twain, he comes across today as coy and contrived. Certain phrases make their appearance in far too many of the tales, for example: "Once there was a....but that's another story." Cute kids, the wisdom of animals, the wiles of the fair sex, the unfathomable nature of "natives", gruff officers, perfect ladies, the one-dimensional earthiness of the common soldier---these are stories filled with stereotypes. Kipling's stories may hold your interest for a short time and you can wonder at the change in taste that has occurred between 1907, when he published these, and today. In many tales, Kipling depicts the lifestyle among the higher echelons of the British Raj, but only through a veil of irony or humor. A regular topic is the struggle for social status among the British; efforts to short circuit the pecking order and reversals suffered thereby. People marrying "beneath them" or trying to marry "above them" are often found here. Though people still refer to Kipling as "a writer about India", it is still true that he wrote about his compatriots, not about India. The two or three tales with Indian characters who are anything other than servants lack any depth. Even the pathos-filled "Story of Muhammad Din", which shows understanding, ultimately deals with illness as something inevitable in India---there are no questions as to why death comes to small children so frequently. Overall, Kipling provides a certain local color to British literature of the late 19th and early 20th century, but cannot be regarded as a great British writer on the level of Maugham, Conrad, Lawrence, Forster or Greene because he lacks broader humanity, deep thought, and universal vision.

Having spent years combing the used bookstores from Maine to Florida for Victorian era detective fiction, I can vouch for the superlative quality of this collection. You would probably have to time-travel in order to find so many intriguing stories all in one place-including a rare gem by R. Austin Freeman which apparently has never been published before in the United States. The editor is Edgar award-winning author Douglas G. Greene, considered by many the foremost authority on classic detective fiction today. The introductory essay alone is worth the price of the book. Thanks again, Dover-and thanks again, Douglas Greene.

This is an anthology of detective stories in Victorian era, when Holmes and Watson were actively investigating. However, Holmes fans will still be rather disappointed because most are featuring rather commonplace detectives showing off in front of the dumb. Nevertheless, there is still some intelligence in the detectives, which is rarely found in their modern world collegues.

Editor Douglas Greene has gathered an eclectic set of Victorian mysteries that is sure to please fans of Victorian literature. Many of these authors are long out of print, and there were several with whom I was completely unfamiliar.

There were of course, stories by Doyle, Orczy and Chesterton to represent the more traditional favorites--Chesterton's "The Eye of Apollo" is especially excellent. Several of the other stories were surprisingly deep and well-written, though there were also a few truly dreadfully written stories, that were quite popular in their day, and reading them was fun in a different way. (I'll not give my opinion as to which stories were which, so as not to influence other readers.)

Overall, this is an excellent set of Victorian stories, giving a wide range of styles and tastes, with a short biography of the author at the start of the story. For anyone who enjoys Victorian lit, these stories (especially the lesser known gems among them) will make a wonderful read.

Lots of very entertaining, fast reading stories, all but one being about service in British India of some sort. The best one, set in England, was about a man who could remember being a galley slave in a previous life. This volume contains "The Man Who Would Be King", a not very good story. Kudos to the person who made a wonderful movie from it with Michael Caine and Sean Connery. Almost all the stories are told from the point of view of the narrator telling someone else's story. Not a few have to do with ghosts and the mysticism of India, which is generally portrayed as a hot, dry, dusty, rather miserable country. A great deal of men and women dying in his stories, also one child. They are good reading, but not at all humorous. All the principles usually work for the British government in civil service positions.

Beginning of the Armadillos was a good book, and it held good description. It captures a young child's imagination and is very informative. I enjoyed it.

Captains Courageous is by Rudyard Kipling. Harvey Cheyne,Junior, is a spoiled,rich, kid who likes talking people into playing poker. One day, he asked for a cigar from a German on ship, and he started feeling seasick and the people laughed as he said he was going outside for air. A sailor bumped into him and that knocked him over board. He was picked up by a portuegese called Manuel. As he was cleaned up and taken care of, later he met Captain Disko Troop and his son Dan. Read this book on a rainy day and trust me,you couldn't possibley put it down.

If you are a cat lover, I recommend that you read or listen to this book or audio cassette. I think you will find it entertaining. Each of the stories includes a significant story-line about a cat with a cute, mischievous or whimsical personality. I could see my cat or a cat that I know in many of the main characters. The stories and/or poems are told by readers with British accents each suited to the theme of the story. My favorite, though eerie, is The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe. I am amazed how brilliant the story sounded...like poetry, yet the end had an amazing, morbid twist. Definitely unforgettable.

Dover's collections of ghost, horror, and mystery stories are among the best deals in the paperback book world. I read this volume around Halloween, and it made what little hair I have left curl and vanish. The quality of the individual stories varies greatly, with the best being "Wandering Willie's Tale" by Sir Walter Scott, "Doctor Heidegger's Experiment" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the much-anthologized "The Horla" by Guy de Maupassant. Also included is the classic "The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs and "Dracula's Guest" by Bram Stoker. In all, there are eighteen different stories by sixteen authors.

My copy of the book was purchased some many years ago and still looks great for a paperback, so you don't have to feel any compunctions buying a used copy in good condition.

This book will give you many hours of scary enjoyment. What more can I say?

A Diversity of Creatures was published in 1917, but most of the stories predate World War I, and it shows. The book resembles the just preceding adult collection, Actions and Reactions, more than it does the postwar collections such as Limits and Renewals. Indeed, I would classify A Diversity of Creatures as something of a disappointment, if only relative to Kipling's high standard. It does include one of his all-time great stories, "Mary Postgate", and one other very fine story, the odd SF piece "As Easy as A. B. C." Perhaps not surprisingly these close and open the collection. There is also the famous comic story "The Village That Voted the Earth Was Flat".

The most obvious recurring theme in the collection is revenge, and not always in a good way. Quite often the revenge is by characters Kipling appears to approve of against hapless or awkward antagonists, and seems out of proportion to the original offense. For example, in "The Village That Voted the Earth Was Flat", a group of people in an early motorcar are caught in a sort of speed trap, clearly a revenue grab by a local Baronet. They are newspaper people, as well as an M. P. and (in another car) a theatre man. They get together to subject the village in which they were mistreated to humiliation by such means as arranging for them to be hoodwinked into voting that the Earth is flat after a presentation by a fake member of the Flat Earth Society.

"As Easy as A.B.C." is a sequel to "With the Night Mail". It is set in 2065. The world by this time has become a mostly libertarian paradise, with a declining population and a horror of invasion of privacy. One form of invasion of privacy, in this formulation, is democracy, with its imposure of majority will. Paradoxically (or not), the generally libertarian nature of this society is maintained by the Draconian rule of "The A.B.C., that semi-elected, semi-nominated, body of a few score persons", as the introductory paragraph has it. In this story some members of the A.B.C. are travelling to Chicago, where it seems a few idlers and no-accounts have been assembling and trying to force votes on various issues. The other locals, horrified, call in the A.B.C. demanding that they take over -- if they don't, they say, people might get killed. And so the A.B.C., rather drastically it seemed to me, takes things in hand -- though with magic tech that supposedly won't actually really hurt anyone. Politics aside (the views put forth are, I think, purposely exaggerated for effect), I really liked the story. It seems very fresh, very science-fictional and well thought out, for all that it dates to 1912.

The title character of "Mary Postgate" is a spinster hired to be companion to a well-off woman, Miss Fowler. Miss Fowler's nephew Wynn is orphaned, and she and Mary Postgate more or less raise him, until he joins the nascent Flying Corps at the outbreak of war. Soon he dies in a training accident. Through all this we gather something of Mary Postgate's relationship to him: clearly she dotes on the boy while he treats her with casual disrespect that one supposes includes a reluctant admixture of affection. Mary Postgate suffers in silence through the funeral, and the cleaning up of his effects. The two women decide to burn some of Wynn's belongings, and as Mary is working on his there is another accident -- a building collapses, and a local child is killed. At about the same time an airplane crashes near the incinerator where Mary Postgate is burying Wynn's effects. Mary immediately (and almost certainly erroneously) decides that the airplane had dropped a bomb, causing the building collapse. When she finds the downed pilot, she refuses him any help (though he speaks in French, albeit possibly German accented French), instead guarding him until he dies -- an event she reacts to in a stunning scene in which she seems perhaps to come to orgasm as the main dies.

It's an odd odd story, and Mary Postgate is one of Kipling's stranger characters. You might think that the story, written in about 1917, in the midst of the War, should be read straight -- that Mary is simply doing her bit for the War effort, killing her German, as it were, while mourning her lost surrogate son, who died as a result of the War. But everywhere this is undermined. Mary's actions are hardly heroic, and her orgasmic reaction to his death is distasteful. The German pilot isn't even necessarily German -- he could be French, an ally. Mary assumes he dropped a bomb on the village and killed a child -- but that does not seem likely. Mary's beloved Wynn does not die in action but in a training accident. To me the story seems rather to be concerned with the tragic waste of war, with the danger of excessive vengefulness, and with one particular character: the spinster Mary Postgate.

These stories are the cream of the crop in this book. There are other fine stories (for example "In the Same Boat"), and even the lesser stories are Kipling -- thus hardly to be ignored! The 4 star rating is only relative to the greatest Kipling collections, such as Limits and Renewals and Traffics and Discoveries.