Rudyard Kipling Books

I'll give this biography of Kipling a top rating but with a couple of reservations. First, "Strange Ride" is very, very English. Some of the references and phrasing are incomprehensible to Americans -- or at least this American. It's the old problem of two countries divided by a common language which is really not so common. Secondly, the author presumes a fair amount of advance knowledge about Kipling by the reader. If you think kipling is something the Brits eat for breakfast, you probably won't comprehend this book. Read some of Kipling's stories and poems and a simpler biography of his life before trying this one.

Reservations aside, this is an insightful literary biography in which the author derives most of his views from Kipling's own writing. Rather than focusing on daily events in Kipling's life or a chronology the author is more interested in broad themes. One theme, for example, to which he refers frequently is Kipling's lifelong apprehension about his place in society because he never went to a University or punched the other tickets to acceptance by Victorian society. A second theme is Kipling's interest in children and his own searing experiences as a child. A third is Kipling's concept of duty, "take up the White man's burden--send forth the best ye breed."

The author does some outstanding interpretations of many of Kipling's works, including his masterpiece, "Kim," and stories such as "Dayspring Mishandled" and "The Church that was at Antioch."

Clever and immensely talented, Kipling was also a flawed and incomplete artist which makes him more interesting as a person than the ordinary. He is surely one of the most maligned of all major literary figures, but only Shakespeare has produced more memorable and quotable lines of verse. Probably no other story by any author has had such an impact as "Mowgli's Brothers" from "The Jungle Book." Several movies, the Boy Scouts, and the Tarzan myth all derive from "The Jungle Book."

As noted above this is not always an easy book. The National Review selected "Strange Ride" as one of the top 100 non-fiction books of the 20th century. I'm not sure I agree, but it is a worthwhile biography about the most important writer of England's latter days of imperial glory.

Smallchief

I'll give this biography of Kipling a top rating but with a couple of reservations. First, "Strange Ride" is very, very English. Some of the references and phrasing are incomprehensible to Americans -- or at least this American. It's the old problem of two countries divided by a common language which is really not so common. Secondly, the author presumes a fair amount of advance knowledge about Kipling by the reader. If you think kipling is something the Brits eat for breakfast, you probably won't comprehend this book. Read some of Kipling's stories and poems and a simpler biography of his life before trying this one.

Reservations aside, this is an insightful literary biography in which the author derives most of his views from Kipling's own writing. Rather than focusing on daily events in Kipling's life or a chronology the author is more interested in broad themes. One theme, for example, to which he refers frequently is Kipling's lifelong apprehension about his place in society because he never went to a University or punched the other tickets to acceptance by Victorian society. A second theme is Kipling's interest in children and his own searing experiences as a child. A third is Kipling's concept of duty, "take up the White man's burden--send forth the best ye breed."

The author does some outstanding interpretations of many of Kipling's works, including his masterpiece, "Kim," and stories such as "Dayspring Mishandled" and "The Church that was at Antioch."

Clever and immensely talented, Kipling was also a flawed and incomplete artist which makes him more interesting as a person than the ordinary. He is surely one of the most maligned of all major literary figures, but only Shakespeare has produced more memorable and quotable lines of verse. Probably no other story by any author has had such an impact as "Mowgli's Brothers" from "The Jungle Book." Several movies, the Boy Scouts, and the Tarzan myth all derive from "The Jungle Book."

As noted above this is not always an easy book. The National Review selected "Strange Ride" as one of the top 100 non-fiction books of the 20th century. I'm not sure I agree, but it is a worthwhile biography about the most important writer of England's latter days of imperial glory.

Smallchief

Told from the perspective of a dog called Boots this story captured the imagination of my children from beginning to end. I wanted to send it to my neice as a birthday present but sadly it is out of print. The story is a little dated but the themes are current and I would recommend it to anyone - not just for children.

Since it appears that Amazon is combining the reviews for several versions of this book under one, I want to stipulate that I've read the Barnes & Nobel Classic version.

Actually comprised of 2 books, The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book, this is a collection of stories surrounding the jungles of India. A central character is Mowgli - a boy left in the jungle when his parents are frightened away and who is raised by wolves. His adventures as he grows up in the jungle are intriguing, frightening, enchanting, and certainly adventurous! This is NOT Disney! The way Kipling presents this material, it is easy to suspend belief and one could believe a boy was raised amongst the animals.

There are a host of other stories in each books that have nothing whatsoever to do with Mowgli, and that is fine. A couple even take the reader out of the jungle and into the frozen north - talk about a change of scenery! Still, Kipling keeps the reader fully engaged with the lives of animals and the effects of their environment.

A book of true escapism, but certainly not "just" for adults or children. Though the language might be a little more difficult to follow for younger children, older children should be able to stretch their imagination. And adults can fully appreciate the language of Kipling, which is rich and descriptive.

A thoroughly enjoyable read!

"The Jungle Books" by Rudyard Kipling are adventures of Mowgli and friends. Mowgli is a boy who is kidnapped as a baby by a tiger. He is raised by wolves and taught the laws of the jungle by Baloo the bear and Bagheera the black panther. Mowgli is then kicked out of the wolf pack because of Shere Khan the tiger who swore to kill Mowgli one day. Mowgli learns all the ways of the jungle. He eventually kills Shere Khan. Baloo is a lovable bear who teaches Mowgli the ways of the jungle and how to respect it. Bagheera is a feared and wise black panther who befriends Mowgli in all situations. In "Kaa's Hunting", Mowgli is kidnapped by the Bandar-log monkeys. Monkeys are not highly respected in the jungle community because they have no leader. Baloo and Bagheera seek the help of Kaa the Python to rescue Mowgli. The stories "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" and "The White Seal" have nothing to do with Mowgli and his adventures, but they offer valuable lessons. The lesson in "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" is to trust yourself and the loyalty in friends.
The story "The White Seal" is about Aleuts coming to Novastoshnah every year and skinning hundreds of seals. The only white seal ever born on the island, Kotick, wants to find a new island to stay on, so that the people will not know where to look for the seals. This way no more seals will be killed. Kotick wanders for many years in search of a new island to live on. Once he finds one, he goes back to tell the rest of his herd, but they don't believe him. He challenges one of the other males to a fight and if he wins, they will go with Kotick to the new island. In the end, all the other seals die because none of them would go with him, so he taught them all a lesson.
In "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", a curious mongoose wanders into a garden. He meets a cobra named Nag. Because mongooses naturally eat snakes, Rikki-Tikki kills Nag. Nagina, Nag's wife gets mad at Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and threatens to bite his owners. Rikki-Tikki crushes all of his eggs in the nest. I liked this story, but didn't like how it didn't tie into the adventures of Mowgli.
In "Toomai of the Elephants", a young boy falls asleep on his elephant. The elephants then march off to a hill far away. Here the boy wakes up to find thousands of elephants all stomping in the same pattern, at the same time. The boy has seen the dance of the elephants. When he returns to his father, he tells him that, but he doesn't believe him. I disliked how that this story also had nothing to do with Mowgli and his adventures.

Rather than being raised by apes, it is wolves that fulfill for the family role for the young boy Mowgli after he escapes being tiger snacks.

Shere Khan will continue to be his antagonist, and he will gain advice and assistance from other jungle denizens as he grows to manhood.

This also has the pretty cool heroic mongoose tale Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

Though Walt Disney and Enid Blyton are my fav picks for children, The Jungle Book is a nicer read. Mowgli is just a loving character and as an Indian version of the Jungle Book is a fav among kids in Hindi, this is a sure pick for all children. Rudyard Kipling takes kids for a ride to an adventure with thrills and fantasies - it all depends on the taste and choice of read. However, I recommend this book as this is fun read and kids in my library too, love to read and watch The Jungle Book. Enjoy!

- ilaxi

"The Jungle Books" by Rudyard Kipling are adventures of Mowgli and friends. Mowgli is a boy who is kidnapped as a baby by a tiger. He is raised by wolves and taught the laws of the jungle by Baloo the bear and Bagheera the black panther. Mowgli is then kicked out of the wolf pack because of Shere Khan the tiger who swore to kill Mowgli one day. Mowgli learns all the ways of the jungle. He eventually kills Shere Khan. Baloo is a lovable bear who teaches Mowgli the ways of the jungle and how to respect it. Bagheera is a feared and wise black panther who befriends Mowgli in all situations. In "Kaa's Hunting", Mowgli is kidnapped by the Bandar-log monkeys. Monkeys are not highly respected in the jungle community because they have no leader. Baloo and Bagheera seek the help of Kaa the Python to rescue Mowgli. The stories "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" and "The White Seal" have nothing to do with Mowgli and his adventures, but they offer valuable lessons. The lesson in "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" is to trust yourself and the loyalty in friends.
The story "The White Seal" is about Aleuts coming to Novastoshnah every year and skinning hundreds of seals. The only white seal ever born on the island, Kotick, wants to find a new island to stay on, so that the people will not know where to look for the seals. This way no more seals will be killed. Kotick wanders for many years in search of a new island to live on. Once he finds one, he goes back to tell the rest of his herd, but they don't believe him. He challenges one of the other males to a fight and if he wins, they will go with Kotick to the new island. In the end, all the other seals die because none of them would go with him, so he taught them all a lesson.
In "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", a curious mongoose wanders into a garden. He meets a cobra named Nag. Because mongooses naturally eat snakes, Rikki-Tikki kills Nag. Nagina, Nag's wife gets mad at Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and threatens to bite his owners. Rikki-Tikki crushes all of his eggs in the nest. I liked this story, but didn't like how it didn't tie into the adventures of Mowgli.
In "Toomai of the Elephants", a young boy falls asleep on his elephant. The elephants then march off to a hill far away. Here the boy wakes up to find thousands of elephants all stomping in the same pattern, at the same time. The boy has seen the dance of the elephants. When he returns to his father, he tells him that, but he doesn't believe him. I disliked how that this story also had nothing to do with Mowgli and his adventures.

Geoffry Patterson's beautifully illustrations combine with the easy to read rhythm of this Rudyard Kippling tale. A captivating book. A treasure.

I used to read this story to my son, now 29; and it was always a favorite of his and of mine. I just bought this copy to read to his 3-year-old daughter, who also loves it. I got the "again!" plea from her, which is always a good sign. This is a fun story to read out loud.

Right after "The Cat who Walked by Himself" This has always been my favorite "Just So Story." It is good to see it in an individual book, as it is a little unwieldy as part of a group. This is the story of a curious elephant and how the elephant go its trunk. I can not say much more as the reader needs to experience the story as it unfolds. The pictures add a dimension and do not distract from the words.

Rudyard Kipling is a master at this telling. "In the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk."

Just So Stories (Books of Wonder)

This is a wonderful, imaginative, creative take on an old tale. Nicholson is great -- charming, sly, knowing & on top of each character, McFerrin is pure lyric, his vocal skills put to perfect use here, & the whole production is enough to stop you in your tracks. Unless, of course, you have a zombie agenda -- the stubby mustachioed desire to dictate all that happens in the world around you, to re-write history to your preconceptions. Too much whacking? How about you get a real life, load up on the amazing, the unexpected, the delightful, the instantaneous & then try this. Yup, it'll never live up to any PC ideas. It may not be the definitive telling of this story (though I know of no better & don't expect any real soon), but it is a totally charming variation if you are still breathing when you see it.

One of the most original tales in the English language, "The Elephant's Child" by Rudyard Kipling is published again, this time with pictures by Lorinda Bryan Cauley. The book has been around since 1983, and still holds its own in style.

From time to time, during visits to the zoo, have you wondered why an animal has a certain feature? Giraffes have long necks. Why? Monkeys have feet that are a lot like hands. Why? And, elephants have extraordinarily long noses. What good is that?

Kipling knew why and took time to tell us. With the refrain explaining where it all happened, by "the banks of the great-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees," Kipling shows us what fun alliteration can be.

While in pursuit of an array of questions, especially what crocodiles eat, a young elephant -- an Elephant's Child, goes on a journey to the Limpopo to find out. His quick to spank him relatives don't encourage him to go so much as force him to, fully geared with little red bananas.

Loaded with naivete and his next meal, he heads out. He meets a bi-colored-python-rock-snake and the crocodile who not-so-politely gives him the answer, and the Elephant's Child returns to explain on his own terms what he learned.

A generous mix of black and white, and color pen and ink drawings frame the story. As imaginative as Kipling's words, Cauley's pictures will tease readers to wonder about the animals and exotic jungle and river.

Versions of "The Elephant's Child" abound, as the original tale is part of public domain. Be sure to get an unedited, uncorrected version, as modern editors lack the brilliance Kipling was blessed with.

I fully recommend "The Elephant's Child" by Rudyard Kipling, and this version is worthy of the story and your shelf.

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com

When I was young I had a serious Kipling period, but not so serious that I bought all his stuff. To get all the Stalky stories you had to buy various books that I did not want to buy and keep. Or so I thought. In The Complete Stalky you get all the stories in one volume.
The present day young probably won't like the book much for it describes something that is mostly history, but I am old enough to have seen a very authoritarian school system and when I read the book the first time I recognised all the teachers.

Fantastically funny and wholly original - I'd absolutely urge anyone who has read any of the Harry Potter books to return to the source...

Stalky and Co is the story of three boys in a private British school, which is a lot like saying that The Lord of the Rings is about four Hobbits who go out walking. I've lost count of the number of times I've read this hilarious, madcap, brilliant book, and this would easily make my Desert Island Top 10 list without a moments' hesitation.

One of the three boys, Beetle, is actually Kipling himself, writing in the same autobiographical manner he adopted for the excellent short story, Baa Baa Black Sheep. He and his cohorts, Stalky and the inscrutable McTurk, wage an ongoing battle against what they perceive to be the hypocrisy and cant of their headmasters. This battle is waged with a fiendish sense of irony and fair play, and great pains are taken that the punishments should be tailor-made to fit the crimes. The language and slang are a delight in themselves, and incorporating the better phrases into your own speech is a nearly irresistable temptation. I don't enjoy everything Kipling wrote, but this sadly forgotten book would be enough to win me over as a fan even if he was the worst writer in history.

This is my absolute favorite book of all time. Not only is the story brilliant - Stalky & Co. repeatedly outwitting their elders and peers in creative and innovative ways - but the language is pure gold. The book is chocked full of delightful gems of British schoolboy slang, from giglamps to fags to brollies - and the teachers' vocabulary is spectacular. Say what you like about Kipling, but this book is magnificent.

This is an abysmal recording of Stalky and Co. Read by some vapid, arch young woman who doesn't get sarcasm or irony. In that marvelous scene early on in which M'Turk sees the keeper poaching a vixen in cubbing season, goes all feudal and Irish, and confronts the landowner, the silly besom reads it as if it's Eeyore confronting Piglet. That scene was funny to me when I was 7 and I didn't even understand most of it. And she's American. I am actually going to trash the tape to the publisher. Regardless of non PC stuff, I love Kipling, especially Stalky, Kim, and Puck. Every summer holidays since I was quite young, I began ceremoniously by reading Stalky , Kim, and The Sword in the Stone. A great story, ruined by a reader who does not understand it. Soporific.

Well, Kipling rocks. "The white Man's burden" tells you all about development assistance - nothing changes;)

It's Kipling. It's an important part of a filker's inventory, since Leslie Fish has put quite a bit of it to music. Kipling wrote these as songs, but we don't have his music anymore. Anyhoo, the National Trust has graciously granted Leslie to use the lyrics and she has come up with some fun pieces to sing, like "Rimini," "The Pict's Song," etc. It's a definite MUST for filkers, and it doesn't matter how its organized - it's KIPLING, and that's enough.

Much ado has been made lately about Kipling, mainly due to a resurgence of affection for poems like The White Man's Burden. Although this has been brought on by the war on terrorism, Kipling's work will brave the tests of time granting him immortality.

Some reviewers have criticized the organization of Complete Verse. The table of contents lists all 500 or so poems in alphabetical order, and the editor provides an index of first lines. What the reader does not get is a scholar's interpretation of Kipling's prose. Although sometimes I enjoy reading another's perspective on the author's intentions, why bias my own experience with the thoughts of another critic? Much better to walk the fields of verse on a virgin path, experiencing Kipling through my own mind.

A great compilation of poetry from a splendid author. Bravo!

... Collections of Kipling's poems have been published many times over the years, but many of them were not complete. This collection includes many not found elsewhere. Many of his poems are about the British Army or the British Empire, but there are also poems on other topics. Some of Kipling's poems are better known than others, e.g., "Gunga Din." A few have been set to music, e.g., "Mandalay" and "Gentlemen-Rankers." In some cases, particular lines are well known such as, "Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet (from "The Ballad of East and West") or "the Colonel's Lady and Judy O'Grady are sisters under their skins" (from "The Ladies). Some of the poems were concerned with the poor treatment of British soldiers for whom Kipling was a champion, including "Shillin' a Day," "Back to the Army Again," "The Last of the Light Brigade," and "Tommy" ("I went into a public 'ouse to get a pint of beer, the publican 'e up an' sez, 'we serve no redcoats here' ").

Overall, it is a good, wide-ranging collection of poetry covering an extended time period. The collection is recommended for all age groups, although some poems might have to be explained to children. The poems were written at a different time in history, and readers should be aware that some of them may express prejudices and language of that period ("for she knifed me one night, 'cause I wished she was white, and I learned about women from 'er," from "The Ladies")

The Man knew more about Soldiers and soldiering than most Generals today. His line "here lies a fool who tried to hustle the East" has more wisdom in those few lines than most books.
If you want a realistic look at how life is as opposed to the way you want it to be, do a Recon on the Old Boy.

The Jungle Book is now one of my all time favorite books. When you read the book it makes you feel like you're there too. I like the way Rudyard Kipling has the animals talk. The main character in the story is a boy named Mowgli. Mowgli was abandoned by his mother and father and raised by wolves. I think
Mowgli is the perfect character for the story because he is brave, smart, and kind.The part I disliked the most in the story is when they keep going to the council rock. I thought it was boring. I liked the excitement in the book and the cliff hangers. Once I picked up the book I couldn't set it down again. I definitely recommend this book to anybody who is in for a challenge!

I grew up reading and re-reading theses stories. I never found a compilation of the Mowgli stories I liked though, at least not an affordable one.

This one gave me not only Mowgli but Rikki-tikki-tavi. All with excellent illustrations that add but do not intrude on the stories.

This is a classic that should be on every bookshelf.

This is a beautiful edition of the wonderful childhood classic. I gave it to my twelve-year-old grandson, and he is enjoying it very much. The book is so much better than the movie! I love the way Kipling talks with his reader. I loved this book as a child myself and am very happy to have this great edition to give to my grandchildren.

This book was good because it had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. It was also god beacause it had more than one story in it, like the one about the seal.The best one though was the one with Mowgli and it follows him through his life and him leaving and becoming a normal person.

While I admire Disney's animation (and am looking forward to their Hamlet-ish The Lion King), I usually gripe about the changes they make in their movies from their source material. All one has to do is read the original Pinocchio, Peter Pan, or, supposedly, Bambi, to berate them for destroying classics. I probably should be bothered as well by their Jungle Book, except that I think that it was one of the cases where the marriage of animation, story and music achieves more than the original. Without the source material, it would be nothing, of course, but the wonderful songs (who can forget "Bare Necessities," "Trust in Me," or "I Wanna Be Like You"?) and the structure that turned Kipling's short tales into a two-hour movie create a gestalt that I'm not sure Kipling's tales do by themselves. This is probably sacrilege to the ears of the true Kipling fan, but I'm nothing if not opinionated.

The stories that make up the Jungle Book aren't solely about Mowgli, though, and it's the others, especially "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," that make this a definate must have.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I have read many of these stories and enjoyed them tremendously over the years. They have been brought to life in this audio series. Many of the stories kept me awake at night( Lost Hearts, The Monkey's Paw,The Tell Tale Heart)when I read them in print. The Audio version is even better. The actors chosen to narrate this collection are outstanding and give a new interpretation to these classic tales.

This collection has a good selection of stories and readers that entertains for the whole production. The stories are all different so there is no danger of boredom. The readers are trained experts so it is very enjoyable. I fully recommend this audiobook

I enjoy the varied readers of these English and American Gothic masterpieces.The readers have achieved a fine balance between dramatization and plain reading.
Although some of the British authors are new to me, especially the wickedly witty, Saki, I have not read several of the old Gothic American stories since high school English class, so they return as a surprise to me when heard in a more mature way now. For instance, I was driving along listening to "The Black Cat" and was so shocked at what was happening in the story that I turned it off. Then I drove for a while and realized I simply had to know what happened next, and turned it back on. To me that is a sign of great literature.
Of course, many of these short stories are not for children and the parent who complained about their content might want to pre-screen the stories her child listens to.
Hearing these stories again has been a real listening pleasure for me.

I got these hoping to interest my kids in some of the classics but alot of these stories were just plain gory! I'm no prude but some of these authors had real ideas about torture. Maybe for older kids as Halloween Ghost stories.