View source for Rudyard Kipling

{{Short description|English writer and poet (1865–1936)}}
{{Redirect|Kipling}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2016}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2025}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = Rudyard Kipling<!-- do not add image icons such as Nobel Prize, see [[:Template:Infobox writer]] -->
| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|size=100|FRSL|country=GBR}}
| image            = Rudyard Kipling (portrait).jpg
| caption          = Kipling in 1895
| birth_name       = Joseph Rudyard Kipling
| birth_date       = {{Birth date|df=y|1865|12|30}}
| birth_place      = [[Bombay]], [[Bombay Presidency]], [[British Raj|British India]]
| death_date       = {{Death date and age|df=y|1936|1|18|1865|12|30}}
| death_place      = [[Fitzrovia, London]], England
| resting_place    = [[Poets' Corner]], [[Westminster Abbey]]
| occupation       = {{hlist|Short-story writer|novelist|poet|journalist}}
| genre            = {{hlist|[[Short story]]|[[novel]]|[[children's literature]]|[[poetry]]|[[travel]] [[literature]]|[[science fiction]]}}
| notableworks     = {{cslist|''[[The Jungle Book]]''|''[[Just So Stories]]''|''[[Kim (novel)|Kim]]''|''[[Captains Courageous]]''|"[[If—]]"|"[[Gunga Din]]"|"[[Mandalay (poem)|Mandalay]]"|"[[The White Man's Burden]]"}}
| spouse           = {{marriage|[[Caroline Starr Balestier Kipling|Caroline Starr Balestier]]|18 January 1892}}
| children         = 3, including [[Elsie Bambridge|Elsie]] and [[John Kipling|John]]
| parents          = {{ubl|[[John Lockwood Kipling]]|[[Alice Kipling|Alice MacDonald]]}}
| awards           = {{awards|[[Nobel Prize in Literature]]|1907}}<!-- do not add image icons such as Nobel Prize, see [[:Template:Infobox writer]] -->
| nationality      = <!-- use only when necessary per [[WP:INFONAT]] -->
| signature        = Rudyard Kipling signature.svg
}}

'''Joseph Rudyard Kipling''' ({{IPAc-en|'|r|ʌ|d|j|ər|d}} {{respell|RUD|yərd}}; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)<ref name="thetimes">''[[The Times]]'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12.</ref> was an English journalist, novelist, poet and short-story writer. He was born in [[British Raj|British India]], which inspired much of his work.

Kipling's works of fiction include the ''Jungle Book'' [[-logy|duology]] (''[[The Jungle Book]]'', 1894; ''[[The Second Jungle Book]]'', 1895), ''[[Kim (novel)|Kim]]'' (1901), the ''[[Just So Stories]]'' (1902) and many short stories, including "[[The Man Who Would Be King]]" (1888).<ref>[http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_wouldbeking_notes.htm "The Man who would be King"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130520115440/http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_wouldbeking_notes.htm |date=20 May 2013 }}. Notes on the text by John McGivering. kiplingsociety.co.uk.</ref> His poems include "[[Mandalay (poem)|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.<ref name="rutherford">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. {{ISBN|0-19-282575-5}}</ref> His children's books are classics; one critic noted "a versatile and luminous narrative gift".<ref name="plainsintro">Rutherford, Andrew (1987). ''Introduction to the Oxford World's Classics edition of 'Plain Tales from the Hills', by Rudyard Kipling''. Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-281652-7}}</ref><ref>[[James Joyce]] considered [[Tolstoy]], Kipling and [[D'Annunzio]] the "three writers of the nineteenth century who had the greatest natural talents", but that they "did not fulfill that promise". He also noted their "semi-fanatic ideas about religion, or about patriotism". Diary of David Fleischman, 21 July 1938, quoted in ''[[James Joyce (biography)|James Joyce]]'' by [[Richard Ellmann]], p. 661, Oxford University Press (1983) {{ISBN|0-19-281465-6}}</ref>

Kipling in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was among the United Kingdom's most popular writers.<ref name="rutherford" /> [[Henry James]] said "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known."<ref name="rutherford" /> In 1907, he was awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]], as the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and at 41, its youngest recipient to date.<ref name="nobel">{{cite web |last=Alfred Nobel Foundation |url=http://nobelprize.org/contact/faq/index.html#3b |title=Who is the youngest ever to receive a Nobel Prize, and who is the oldest? |page=409 |publisher=Nobelprize.com |access-date=30 September 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060925202706/http://nobelprize.org/contact/faq/index.html#3b |archive-date=25 September 2006}}</ref> He was also sounded out for the [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom|British Poet Laureate]]ship and several times for a [[Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom#Knighthood|knighthood]], but declined both.<ref name="birkenhead">[[Frederick Smith, 2nd Earl of Birkenhead|Birkenhead, Lord]] (1978). ''Rudyard Kipling'', Appendix B, "Honours and Awards". Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London; Random House Inc., New York.</ref> Following his death in 1936, his ashes were interred at [[Poets' Corner]] in [[Westminster Abbey]].

Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed with the political and social climate of the age.<ref name="lewis">Lewis, Lisa (1995). ''Introduction to the Oxford World's Classics edition of "Just So Stories", by Rudyard Kipling''. Oxford University Press, pp. xv–xlii. {{ISBN|0-19-282276-4}}</ref><ref name="quigley">Quigley, Isabel (1987). ''Introduction to the Oxford World's Classics edition of "The Complete Stalky & Co.", by Rudyard Kipling''. Oxford University Press, pp. xiii–xxviii. {{ISBN|0-19-281660-8}}</ref> The contrasting views of him continued for much of the 20th century.<ref name="said">Said, Edward (1993). ''Culture and Imperialism''. London: Chatto & Windus, p. 196. {{ISBN|0-679-75054-1}}.</ref><ref name="sandison">Sandison, Alan (1987). ''Introduction to the Oxford World's Classics edition of ''Kim'', by Rudyard Kipling''. Oxford University Press. pp. xiii–xxx. {{ISBN|0-19-281674-8}}</ref> The literary critic [[Douglas Kerr]] wrote that Kipling "is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled. But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognised as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with."<ref name="kerr">Douglas Kerr, University of Hong Kong (30 May 2002). [http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4913 "Rudyard Kipling."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190726110730/https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4913 |date=26 July 2019 }} ''The Literary Encyclopedia''. The Literary Dictionary Company. 26 September 2006.</ref>

==Childhood (1865–1882)==
[[File:Malabarpoint governmenthouse bombay.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|[[Malabar Hill|Malabar Point]], Bombay, 1865]]

Rudyard Kipling was born on 30 December 1865 in [[Mumbai|Bombay]] in the [[Bombay Presidency]] of [[British Raj|British India]], to [[Alice Kipling]] (born MacDonald) and [[John Lockwood Kipling]].<ref name="carrington" /> Alice (one of the four noted [[MacDonald sisters]])<ref>Flanders, Judith (2005). ''A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter, and Louisa Baldwin''. W. W. Norton and Company, New York. {{ISBN|0-393-05210-9}}</ref> was a vivacious woman,<ref name="gilmour">[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]]</ref> of whom [[Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava|Lord Dufferin]] would say, "Dullness and Mrs Kipling cannot exist in the same room."<ref name="rutherford" /><ref>[http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_rival1.htm "My Rival" 1885] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171222051457/http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_rival1.htm |date=22 December 2017 }}. Notes edited by John Radcliffe. kiplingsociety.co.uk</ref><ref>[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], p. 32.</ref> John Lockwood Kipling, a sculptor and pottery designer, was the Principal and Professor of Architectural Sculpture at the newly founded [[Sir J. J. School of Art]] in Bombay.<ref name="gilmour" />

John Lockwood and Alice met in 1863 and courted at [[Rudyard Lake]] in [[Rudyard, Staffordshire]], England. They married and moved to India in 1865 after John Lockwood had accepted the position as Professor at the School of Art.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kastan |first1=David Scott |title=The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature Volume 1 |date=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=202}}</ref> They had been so moved by the beauty of the Rudyard Lake area that they named their first child after it, Joseph Rudyard. Two of Alice's sisters were married to artists: [[Georgiana Burne-Jones|Georgiana]] to the painter [[Edward Burne-Jones]], and her sister Agnes to [[Edward Poynter]]. A third sister, Louisa, was the mother of Kipling's most prominent relative, his first cousin [[Stanley Baldwin]], who was the [[British prime minister]] three times in the 1920s and 1930s.<ref>{{cite web |last=thepotteries.org |date=13 January 2002 |url=http://www.thepotteries.org/did_you/002.htm |title=did you know... |publisher=The potteries.org |access-date=2 October 2006 |archive-date=26 May 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120526040100/http://www.thepotteries.org/did_you/002.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

Kipling's birth home on the campus of the Sir J. J. School of Art in Bombay was for many years used as the dean's residence.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Ahmed |first1=Zubair |title=Kipling's India home to become museum |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7095922.stm |access-date=7 August 2015 |work=BBC News |date=27 November 2007 |archive-date=7 January 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090107091311/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7095922.stm |url-status=live }}</ref> Although a cottage bears a plaque noting it as his birth site, the original building was torn down and replaced.<ref name="rkbirthplace">{{cite web |last=Sir J. J. College of Architecture |date=30 September 2006 |url=http://www.sirjjarchitecture.org/v2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21&Itemid=30 |title=Campus |publisher=Sir J. J. College of Architecture, Mumbai |access-date=2 October 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728025442/http://www.sirjjarchitecture.org/v2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21&Itemid=30 |archive-date=28 July 2011 }}</ref><ref name=":0" /> Some historians and conservationists take the view that the bungalow marks a site merely close to the home of Kipling's birth, as it was built in 1882 – about 15 years after Kipling was born. Kipling seems to have said as much to the dean when visiting J. J. School in the 1930s.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Aklekar |first1=Rajendra |title=Red tape keeps Kipling bungalow in disrepair |url=http://www.mumbaimirror.com/mumbai/others/Red-tape-keeps-Kipling-bungalow-in-disrepair/articleshow/40075245.cms |access-date=7 August 2015 |work=Mumbai Mirror |date=12 August 2014 |archive-date=7 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307153423/http://www.mumbaimirror.com/mumbai/others/Red-tape-keeps-Kipling-bungalow-in-disrepair/articleshow/40075245.cms |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:Map british india kipling en.svg|right|thumb|250px|Map of places visited by Kipling in [[British India]]]]

Kipling wrote of Bombay:

<blockquote><poem>Mother of Cities to me,
For I was born in her gate,
Between the palms and the sea,
Where the world-end steamers wait.<ref>Kipling, Rudyard (1894). "To the City of Bombay", dedication to ''Seven Seas'', Macmillan & Co.</ref></poem></blockquote>

According to Bernice M. Murphy, "Kipling's parents considered themselves '[[Britons in India|Anglo-Indians]]' [a term used in the 19th century for people of British origin living in India] and so too would their son, though he spent the bulk of his life elsewhere. Complex issues of identity and national allegiance would become prominent in his fiction."<ref name="murphy">{{cite web |last=Murphy |first=Bernice M. |date=21 June 1999 |url=http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/imperial/india/kipling-bio.htm |title=Rudyard Kipling – A Brief Biography| publisher=School of English, The Queen's University of Belfast |access-date=6 October 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121114033722/http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/imperial/india/kipling-bio.htm |archive-date=14 November 2012 }}</ref>

Kipling referred to such conflicts. For example: "In the afternoon heats before we took our sleep, she (the Portuguese ''[[Amah (occupation)|ayah]]'', or nanny) or Meeta (the Hindu ''bearer'', or male attendant) would tell us stories and Indian nursery songs all unforgotten, and we were sent into the dining-room after we had been dressed, with the caution 'Speak English now to Papa and Mamma.' So one spoke 'English', haltingly translated out of the vernacular idiom that one thought and dreamed in."<ref name="autobio" />

===Education in Britain===
[[File:Rudyard Kipling 1865-1936 writer and Nobel Laureate lived here as a boy 1871-1877.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[English Heritage]] [[blue plaque]] marking Kipling's time in Southsea, Portsmouth]]

Kipling's days of "strong light and darkness" in Bombay ended when he was five.<ref name="autobio">{{cite web |url=http://ghostwolf.dyndns.org/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/prose/SomethingOfMyself/index.html |title=''Something of Myself'' |last=Kipling |first=Rudyard |year=1935 |access-date=6 September 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140223004314/http://ghostwolf.dyndns.org/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/prose/SomethingOfMyself/index.html |archive-date=23 February 2014 }}</ref> As was the custom in British India, he and his three-year-old sister Alice ("Trix") were taken to the United Kingdom – in their case to [[Southsea]], [[Portsmouth]] – to live with a couple who [[Boarding house|boarded]] children of British nationals living abroad.<ref name="oxdnb">{{cite ODNB |id=34334 |title=Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard (1865–1936) |orig-year=2004 |year=2011 |last=Pinney |first=Thomas}}</ref> For the next six years (from October 1871 to April 1877), the children lived with the couple – Captain Pryse Agar Holloway, once an officer in the [[Merchant Navy (United Kingdom)|merchant navy]], and Sarah Holloway – at their house, Lorne Lodge, 4 Campbell Road, Southsea.<ref name="Kipling R – A Very Young Person">{{cite web |last=Pinney |first=Thomas |year=1995 |url=http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_veryyoung_notes.htm |title=A Very Young Person, Notes on the text |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |access-date=6 March 2012 |archive-date=20 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130520092440/http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_veryyoung_notes.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> Kipling referred to the place as "the House of Desolation".<ref name="autobio" />

In his autobiography published 65 years later, Kipling recalled the stay with horror, and wondered if the combination of cruelty and neglect that he experienced there at the hands of Mrs Holloway might not have hastened the onset of his literary life: "If you cross-examine a child of seven or eight on his day's doings (specially when he wants to go to sleep) he will contradict himself very satisfactorily. If each contradiction be set down as a lie and retailed at breakfast, life is not easy. I have known a certain amount of [[bullying]], but this was calculated [[torture]] – religious as well as scientific. Yet it made me give attention to the lies I soon found it necessary to tell: and this, I presume, is the foundation of literary effort."<ref name="autobio" />

[[File:Kiplingsengland3.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|''Kipling's England'': A map of England showing Kipling's homes]]

Trix fared better at Lorne Lodge; Mrs Holloway apparently hoped that Trix would eventually marry the Holloways' son.<ref name="oxfordchildren">Carpenter, Humphrey and Prichard, Mari (1984). ''Oxford Companion to Children's Literature''. Oxford University Press, pp. 296–297. {{ISBN|0192115820}}.</ref> The two Kipling children, however, had no relatives in England they could visit, except that they spent a month each Christmas with a maternal aunt Georgiana ("Georgy") and her husband, [[Edward Burne-Jones]], at their house, The Grange, in [[Fulham]], London, which Kipling called "a paradise which I verily believe saved me".<ref name="autobio" />

In the spring of 1877 Alice returned from India and removed the children from Lorne Lodge. Kipling remembers "Often and often afterwards, the beloved Aunt would ask me why I had never told any one how I was being treated. Children tell little more than animals, for what comes to them they accept as eternally established. Also, badly-treated children have a clear notion of what they are likely to get if they betray the secrets of a prison-house before they are clear of it."<ref name="autobio" />

Alice took the children during spring 1877 to Goldings Farm at [[Loughton]], where a carefree summer and autumn was spent on the farm and adjoining Forest, some of the time with [[Stanley Baldwin]]. In January 1878, Kipling was admitted to the [[United Services College]] at Westward Ho!, Devon, a school recently founded to prepare boys for the army. It proved rough going for him at first, but later led to firm friendships and provided the setting for his schoolboy stories ''[[Stalky & Co.]]'' (1899).<ref name="oxfordchildren" /> While there, Kipling met and fell in love with Florence Garrard, who was boarding with Trix at Southsea (to which Trix had returned). Florence became the model for Maisie in Kipling's first novel, ''[[The Light That Failed]]'' (1891).<ref name="oxfordchildren" />

===Return to India===
Near the end of his schooling, it was decided that Kipling did not have the academic ability to get into Oxford University on a scholarship.<ref name="oxfordchildren" /> His parents lacked the wherewithal to finance him,<ref name="gilmour" /> and so Kipling's father obtained a job for him in [[Lahore]], where the father served as Principal of the [[National College Of Arts, Lahore|Mayo College of Art]] and Curator of the [[Lahore Museum]]. Kipling was to be [[sub-editor|assistant editor]] of a local newspaper, the ''[[Civil and Military Gazette]]''.

He sailed for India on 20 September 1882 and arrived in Bombay on 18 October. He described the moment years later: "So, at sixteen years and nine months, but looking four or five years older, and adorned with real whiskers which the scandalised Mother abolished within one hour of beholding, I found myself at Bombay where I was born, moving among sights and smells that made me deliver in the vernacular sentences whose meaning I knew not. Other Indian-born boys have told me how the same thing happened to them."<ref name="autobio" /> This arrival changed Kipling, as he explains: "There were yet three or four days' rail to Lahore, where my people lived. After these, my English years fell away, nor ever, I think, came back in full strength."<ref name="autobio" />

==Early adult life (1882–1914)==
From 1883 to 1889 Kipling worked in British India for local newspapers such as the ''[[Civil and Military Gazette]]'' in Lahore and [[The Pioneer (India)|''The Pioneer'']] in [[Prayagraj|Allahabad]].<ref name="autobio" />
[[File:Lahore railway station1880s.JPG|thumb|upright=1.15|[[Lahore Junction railway station|Lahore Railway Station]] in the 1880s]]
[[File:Sukh Niwas Palace, Bundi, circa 1900.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|[[Bundi]], [[Rajputana Agency|Rajputana]], where Kipling was inspired to write ''[[Kim (novel)|Kim]]'']]

The former, which was the newspaper Kipling was to call his "mistress and most true love",<ref name="autobio" /> appeared six days a week throughout the year, except for one-day breaks for Christmas and Easter. Stephen Wheeler, the editor, worked Kipling hard, but Kipling's need to write was unstoppable. In 1886 he published his first collection of verse, ''Departmental Ditties''. That year also brought a change of editors at the newspaper; [[E. Kay Robinson|Kay Robinson]], the new editor, allowed more creative freedom and Kipling was asked to contribute short stories to the newspaper.<ref name="plainsintro" />

In an article printed in the ''[[Chums (paper)|Chums]]'' boys' annual, an ex-colleague of Kipling's stated that "he never knew such a fellow for ink – he simply revelled in it, filling up his pen viciously, and then throwing the contents all over the office, so that it was almost dangerous to approach him."<ref>''Chums'', No. 256, Vol. V, 4 August 1897, p. 798.</ref> The anecdote continues: "In the hot weather when he (Kipling) wore only white trousers and a thin vest, he is said to have resembled a [[Dalmatian dog]] more than a human being, for he was spotted all over with ink in every direction."

In the summer of 1883 Kipling visited Simla (today [[Shimla]]), a well-known [[hill station]] and the summer capital of British India. By then it was the practice for the [[Viceroy of India]] and government to move to Simla for six months, and the town became a "centre of power as well as pleasure".<ref name="plainsintro" /> Kipling's family became annual visitors to Simla, and Lockwood Kipling was asked to serve in [[Christ Church (Shimla)|Christ Church]] there. Rudyard Kipling returned to Simla for his annual leave each year from 1885 to 1888, and the town featured prominently in many stories he wrote for the ''Gazette''.<ref name="plainsintro" /> "My month's leave at Simla, or whatever Hill Station my people went to, was pure joy – every golden hour counted. It began in heat and discomfort, by rail and road. It ended in the cool evening, with a wood fire in one's bedroom, and next morn – thirty more of them ahead! – the early cup of tea, the Mother who brought it in, and the long talks of us all together again. One had leisure to work, too, at whatever play-work was in one's head, and that was usually full."<ref name="autobio" />

Back in Lahore, 39 of his stories appeared in the ''Gazette'' between November 1886 and June 1887. Kipling included most of them in ''[[Plain Tales from the Hills]]'', his first prose collection, published in [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] in January 1888, a month after his 22nd birthday. Kipling's time in Lahore, however, had come to an end. In November 1887 he was moved to the ''Gazette''{{'}}s larger sister newspaper, ''The Pioneer'', in Allahabad in the [[United Provinces of Agra and Oudh|United Provinces]], where he worked as assistant editor and lived in Belvedere House from 1888 to 1889.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Neelam |first1=S |title=Rudyard Kipling's Allahabad bungalow in shambles |url=http://www.hindustantimes.com/books/rudyard-kipling-s-allahabad-bungalow-in-shambles/article1-316198.aspx|access-date=7 August 2015 |work=Hindustan Times |date=8 June 2008}}{{dead link|date=August 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Kipling, Rudyard – 1865–1936 – Homes & haunts – India – Allahabad (from the collection of William Carpenter) |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/2005696003/ |website=Library of Congress US |access-date=7 August 2015 |archive-date=18 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150918234204/http://www.loc.gov/item/2005696003/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:John Lockwood Kipling és Rudyard Kipling.jpg|thumb|upright|Rudyard Kipling (right) with his father John Lockwood Kipling (left), c.&nbsp;1890]]
Kipling's writing continued at a frenetic pace. In 1888 he published six collections of short stories: ''[[Soldiers Three]]'', ''[[The Story of the Gadsbys]]'', ''[[In Black and White (short story collection)|In Black and White]]'', ''[[Under the Deodars]]'', ''[[The Phantom 'Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales|The Phantom Rickshaw]]'' and ''[[Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories|Wee Willie Winkie]]''. These contain a total of 41 stories, some quite long. In addition, as ''The Pioneer''{{'}}s special correspondent in the western region of [[Rajputana Agency|Rajputana]], he wrote many sketches that were later collected in ''Letters of Marque'' and published in ''[[From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel]]''.<ref name="plainsintro" />

Kipling was discharged from ''The Pioneer'' in early 1889 after a dispute. By this time, he had been increasingly thinking of his future. He sold the rights to his six volumes of stories for £200 and a small royalty, and the ''Plain Tales'' for £50; in addition, he received six months' salary from ''The Pioneer'', ''in lieu'' of notice.<ref name="autobio" />

===Return to London===
Kipling decided to use the money to move to London, the literary centre of the [[British Empire]]. On 9 March 1889, he left India, travelling first to San Francisco via [[Yangon|Rangoon]], Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. Kipling was favourably impressed by Japan, calling its people and ways "gracious folk and fair manners".<ref name="auto1">[[#Scott|Scott]], p. 315.</ref> The [[Nobel Prize in Literature|Nobel Prize]] committee cited Kipling's writing on the manners and customs of the Japanese when they awarded his Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907.<ref>{{Cite web|date=1 April 2021|title=The Nobel Prize committee cited Rudyard Kipling's writing on the manners and customs of the Japanese when they awarded him his Nobel prize in 1907|url=https://www.redcircleauthors.com/factbook/the-nobel-prize-committee-cited-rudyard-kiplings-writing-on-the-manners-and-customs-of-the-japanese-when-they-awarded-him-his-nobel-prize-in-1907/|access-date=15 April 2021|website=Red Circle Authors|archive-date=15 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415100408/https://www.redcircleauthors.com/factbook/the-nobel-prize-committee-cited-rudyard-kiplings-writing-on-the-manners-and-customs-of-the-japanese-when-they-awarded-him-his-nobel-prize-in-1907/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Kipling later wrote that he "had lost his heart" to a [[geisha]] whom he called O-Toyo, writing while in the United States during the same trip across the Pacific, "I had left the innocent East far behind.... Weeping softly for O-Toyo.... O-Toyo was a darling."<ref name="auto1" />  Kipling then travelled through the United States, writing articles for ''The Pioneer'' that were later published in ''[[From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel]]''.<ref name="pinney1">Pinney, Thomas (editor). ''Letters of Rudyard Kipling, volume 1''. Macmillan & Co., London and NY.</ref>

Starting his North American travels in San Francisco, Kipling went north to [[Portland, Oregon]], then [[Seattle]], Washington, up to [[Victoria, British Columbia|Victoria]] and [[Vancouver]], British Columbia, through [[Medicine Hat]], Alberta, back into the US to [[Yellowstone National Park]], down to [[Salt Lake City]], then east to [[Omaha, Nebraska]] and on to Chicago, then to [[Beaver, Pennsylvania]] on the [[Ohio River]] to visit the Hill family -- Mrs. Edmonia 'Ted' Hill, "eight years older than [him, who had] become Kipling's closest confidante, friend and sometimes collaborator" in British India, and her husband, Professor S. A. Hill, who [had] taught Physical Science at Muir College in Alhallabad.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.bcpahistory.org/beavercounty/BeaverCountyTopical/notablepeople/KiplingsBeaverConnection/KiplingsBeaverConnection.html|title=Rudyard Kipling's Beaver Connection|author-first= Roger|author-last= Applegate| journal=Milestones |volume=34 |issue=2 |access-date=6 August 2023|archive-date=6 August 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230806165630/https://www.bcpahistory.org/beavercounty/BeaverCountyTopical/notablepeople/KiplingsBeaverConnection/KiplingsBeaverConnection.html|url-status=live}}</ref> From Beaver, Kipling went to [[Chautauqua, New York|Chautauqua]] with Professor Hill, and later to [[Niagara Falls]], Toronto, Washington, D.C., New York and Boston.<ref name="pinney1" />

In the course of this journey he met [[Mark Twain]] in [[Elmira, New York]], and was deeply impressed. Kipling arrived unannounced at Twain's home, and later wrote that as he rang the doorbell, "It occurred to me for the first time that Mark Twain might possibly have other engagements other than the entertainment of escaped lunatics from India, be they ever so full of admiration."<ref name="auto2">{{cite journal |author=Hughes, James |title=Those Who Passed Through: Unusual Visits to Unlikely Places |pages=146–151 |journal=New York History |volume=91 |issue=2 |year=2010 |jstor=23185107}}</ref>

[[File:Collier 1891 rudyard-kipling.jpg|thumb|upright|A portrait of Kipling by [[John Collier (Pre-Raphaelite painter)|John Collier]], c.&nbsp;1891]]
[[File:Rudyard Kipling three quarter length portrait (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright|Rudyard Kipling, by the [[Bourne & Shepherd]] studio, Calcutta (1892)]]

As it was, Twain gladly welcomed Kipling and had a two-hour conversation with him on trends in Anglo-American literature and about what Twain was going to write in a sequel to ''[[The Adventures of Tom Sawyer|Tom Sawyer]]'', with Twain assuring Kipling that a sequel was coming, although he had not decided upon the ending: either Sawyer would be elected to Congress or he would be hanged.<ref name="auto2" /> Twain also passed along the literary advice that an author should "get your facts first and then you can distort 'em as much as you please."<ref name="auto2" /> Twain, who rather liked Kipling, later wrote of their meeting: "Between us, we cover all knowledge; he covers all that can be known and I cover the rest."<ref name="auto2" /> Kipling then crossed the Atlantic to [[Liverpool]] in October 1889. He soon made his début in the London literary world, to great acclaim.<ref name="rutherford" />

===London===
In London Kipling had several stories accepted by magazines. He found a place to live for the next two years at [[Villiers Street]], near [[Charing Cross]] (in a building subsequently named Kipling House):

<blockquote>Meantime, I had found me quarters in Villiers Street, [[Strand, London|Strand]], which forty-six years ago was primitive and passionate in its habits and population. My rooms were small, not over-clean or well-kept, but from my desk I could look out of my window through the [[fanlight]] of [[Charing Cross Music Hall|Gatti's Music-Hall]] entrance, across the street, almost on to its stage. The Charing Cross trains rumbled through my dreams on one side, the boom of the Strand on the other, while, before my windows, [[River Thames|Father Thames]] under the [[Shot tower]] walked up and down with his traffic.<ref>Kipling, Rudyard (1956). ''Kipling: A Selection of His Stories and Poems, Volume 2''. Doubleday. p. 349.</ref></blockquote>

In the next two years, he published a novel, ''[[The Light That Failed]]'', had a [[nervous breakdown]], and met an American writer and publishing agent, [[Wolcott Balestier]], with whom he collaborated on a novel, ''[[The Naulahka: A Story of West and East|The Naulahka]]'' (a title which he uncharacteristically misspelt; see below).<ref name="gilmour" /> In 1891, as advised by his doctors, Kipling took another sea voyage, to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and once again India.<ref name="gilmour" /> He cut short his plans to spend Christmas with his family in India when he heard of Balestier's sudden death from [[typhoid fever]] and decided to return to London immediately. Before his return, he had used the [[Telegraphy#Telegram services|telegram]] to propose to, and be accepted by, Wolcott's sister, [[Caroline Starr Balestier Kipling|Caroline Starr Balestier]] (1862–1939), called "Carrie", whom he had met a year earlier, and with whom he had apparently been having an intermittent romance.<ref name="gilmour" /> Meanwhile, late in 1891, a collection of his short stories on the British in India, ''Life's Handicap'', was published in London.<ref>Coates, John D. (1997). ''The Day's Work: Kipling and the Idea of Sacrifice''. Fairleigh University Press, p. 130. {{ISBN|083863754X}}.</ref>

On 18 January 1892 Carrie Balestier (aged 29) and Kipling (aged 26) married in London, in the "thick of an influenza epidemic, when the undertakers had run out of black horses and the dead had to be content with brown ones."<ref name="autobio" /> The wedding was held at [[All Souls Church, Langham Place|All Souls Church]] in [[Langham Place, London|Langham Place]], Central London. [[Henry James]] gave away the bride.<ref>{{cite news |title=A sensitive bounder |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-sensitive-bounder/ |access-date=21 July 2023 |work=Spectator |archive-date=21 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230721140630/https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-sensitive-bounder/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

===United States===
[[File:Rudyard Kipling in his study at Naulakha Dummerston VT circa 1895.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Kipling in his study at Naulakha, Vermont, US, 1895]]

Kipling and his wife settled upon a honeymoon that took them first to the United States (including a stop at the Balestier family estate near [[Brattleboro, Vermont]]) and then to Japan.<ref name="gilmour" /> On arriving in [[Yokohama]], they discovered that their bank, [[Oriental Bank Corporation|The New Oriental Banking Corporation]], had failed. Taking this loss in their stride, they returned to the US, back to [[Vermont]] – Carrie by this time was pregnant with their first child – and rented a small cottage on a farm near Brattleboro for $10 a month.<ref name="autobio" /> According to Kipling, "We furnished it with a simplicity that fore-ran the [[hire-purchase]] system. We bought, second or third hand, a huge, hot-air stove which we installed in the cellar. We cut generous holes in our thin floors for its eight-inch [20 cm] tin pipes (why we were not burned in our beds each week of the winter I never can understand) and we were extraordinarily and self-centredly content."<ref name="autobio" />

In this house, which they called ''Bliss Cottage'', their first child, Josephine, was born "in three-foot of snow on the night of 29th December, 1892. Her Mother's birthday being the 31st and mine the 30th of the same month, we congratulated her on her sense of the fitness of things..."<ref name="autobio" />

[[File:Kiplingseastcoast2.JPG|thumb|upright=1.35|''Rudyard Kipling's America 1892–1896, 1899'']]

It was also in this cottage that the first dawnings of ''[[The Jungle Book]]s'' came to Kipling: "The workroom in the Bliss Cottage was seven feet by eight, and from December to April, the snow lay level with its window-sill. It chanced that I had written a tale about Indian Forestry work which included a boy who had been brought up by wolves. In the stillness, and suspense, of the winter of '92 some memory of the [[Freemasonry|Masonic]] Lions of my childhood's magazine, and a phrase in [[Henry Rider Haggard|Haggard's]] ''[[Nada the Lily]]'', combined with the echo of this tale. After blocking out the main idea in my head, the pen took charge, and I watched it begin to write stories about [[Mowgli]] and animals, which later grew into the two ''Jungle Books''."<ref name="autobio" />

With Josephine's arrival, ''Bliss Cottage'' was felt to be congested, so eventually the couple bought land – {{convert|10|acre|ha}} on a rocky hillside overlooking the [[Connecticut River]] – from Carrie's brother Beatty Balestier and built their own house. Kipling named this [[Naulakha (Rudyard Kipling House)|Naulakha]], in honour of Wolcott and of their collaboration, and this time the name was spelt correctly.<ref name="gilmour" /> From his early years in [[Lahore]] (1882–87), Kipling had become enamoured with the [[Mughal architecture]],<ref>Kaplan, Robert D. (1989). [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DEFD91039F93AA15752C0A96F948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all "Lahore as Kipling Knew It".] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081206165705/https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DEFD91039F93AA15752C0A96F948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all |date=6 December 2008 }} ''[[The New York Times]]''. Retrieved 9 March 2008</ref> especially the [[Naulakha pavilion]] situated in [[Lahore Fort]], which eventually inspired the title of his novel as well as the house.<ref>Kipling, Rudyard (1996). ''Writings on Writing''. [[Cambridge University Press]]. {{ISBN|0-521-44527-2}}, pp. 36 and 173.</ref> The house still stands on Kipling Road, {{convert|3|mi|km|spell=in}} north of Brattleboro in [[Dummerston, Vermont]]: a big, secluded, dark-green house, with shingled roof and sides, which Kipling called his "ship", and which brought him "sunshine and a mind at ease".<ref name="gilmour" /> His seclusion in Vermont, combined with his healthy "sane clean life", made Kipling both inventive and prolific.

In a mere four years he produced, along with the ''Jungle Books'', a book of short stories (''[[The Day's Work]]''), a novel (''[[Captains Courageous]]''), and a profusion of poetry, including the volume ''[[The Seven Seas (poetry collection)|The Seven Seas]]''. The collection of ''[[Barrack-Room Ballads]]'' was issued in March 1892, first published individually for the most part in 1890, and contained his poems "[[Mandalay (poem)|Mandalay]]" and "[[Gunga Din]]". He especially enjoyed writing the ''Jungle Books'' and also corresponding with many children who wrote to him about them.<ref name="gilmour" />

====Life in New England====
[[File:Caroline Starr Balestier, Mrs Rudyard Kipling (1862-1939).jpg|thumb|upright|Portrait of Kipling's wife, Caroline Starr Balestier, by his cousin Sir [[Philip Burne-Jones]]]]

The writing life in ''Naulakha'' was occasionally interrupted by visitors, including his father, who visited soon after his retirement in 1893,<ref name="gilmour" /> and the British writer [[Arthur Conan Doyle]], who brought his golf clubs, stayed for two days, and gave Kipling an extended golf lesson.<ref name="mallett">Mallet, Phillip (2003). ''Rudyard Kipling: A Literary Life''. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. {{ISBN|0-333-55721-2}}</ref><ref name="ricketts">Ricketts, Harry (1999). ''Rudyard Kipling: A life''. Carroll and Graf Publishers Inc., New York. {{ISBN|0-7867-0711-9}}</ref> Kipling seemed to take to golf, occasionally practising with the local [[Congregational]] minister and even playing with red-painted balls when the ground was covered in snow.<ref name="carrington">[[C. E. Carrington|Carrington, C. E.]] ([http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/carrington.htm Charles Edmund] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130813075823/http://firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/carrington.htm |date=13 August 2013 }}) (1955). ''Rudyard Kipling: His Life and Work''. Macmillan & Co.</ref><ref name="ricketts" /> However, winter golf was "not altogether a success because there were no limits to a drive; the ball might skid {{convert|2|mi|km|spell=in}} down the long slope to [[Connecticut river]]."<ref name="carrington" />

Kipling loved the outdoors,<ref name="gilmour" /> not least of whose marvels in [[Vermont]] was the turning of the leaves each fall. He described this moment in a letter: "A little [[maple]] began it, flaming blood-red of a sudden where he stood against the dark green of a pine-belt. Next morning there was an answering signal from the swamp where the [[sumac]]s grow. Three days later, the hill-sides as fast as the eye could range were afire, and the roads paved, with crimson and gold. Then a wet wind blew, and ruined all the uniforms of that gorgeous army; and the [[oak]]s, who had held themselves in reserve, buckled on their dull and bronzed [[cuirass]]es and stood it out stiffly to the last blown leaf, till nothing remained but pencil-shadings of bare boughs, and one could see into the most private heart of the woods."<ref>Kipling, Rudyard (1920). ''Letters of Travel (1892–1920)''. Macmillan & Co.</ref>

[[File:Joseph Rudyard Kipling, Vanity Fair, 1894-06-07 (Yale).jpg|thumb|upright|left|Caricature of Kipling in the London magazine ''[[Vanity Fair (British magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'', 7 June 1894]]

In February 1896 [[Elsie Kipling]] was born, the couple's second daughter. By this time, according to several biographers, their marital relationship was no longer light-hearted and spontaneous.<ref name="carrie">[[Nicolson, Adam]] (2001). ''Carrie Kipling 1862–1939: The Hated Wife''. Faber & Faber, London. {{ISBN|0-571-20835-5}}</ref> Although they would always remain loyal to each other, they seemed now to have fallen into set roles.<ref name="gilmour" /> In a letter to a friend who had become engaged around this time, the 30‑year‑old Kipling offered this sombre counsel: marriage principally taught "the tougher virtues – such as humility, restraint, order, and forethought."<ref name="pinney">Pinney, Thomas (editor). ''Letters of Rudyard Kipling, volume 2''. Macmillan & Co.</ref> Later in the same year, he temporarily taught at [[Bishop's College School]] in [[Quebec]], Canada.<ref>Bliss Carman, et al., eds. (1904). ''The World's Best Poetry'', Volume I. "Of Home: of Friendship".</ref>

[[File:Naulakha jsephne loggia.jpg|thumb|upright|The Kiplings' first daughter Josephine, 1892. She died of pneumonia in 1899 aged 6.]]

The Kiplings loved life in Vermont and might have lived out their lives there, were it not for two incidents – one of global politics, the other of family discord. By the early 1890s, the United Kingdom and [[Venezuela]] were in a border dispute involving [[British Guiana]]. The US had made several offers to arbitrate, but in 1895 the new American [[United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State]], [[Richard Olney]], upped the ante by arguing for the American "right" to arbitrate on grounds of sovereignty on the continent (see the [[Olney interpretation]] as an extension of the [[Monroe Doctrine]]).<ref name="gilmour" /> This raised hackles in Britain, and the situation grew into a major [[United Kingdom–United States relations#Venezuelan and Alaska border disputes|Anglo-American crisis]], with talk of war on both sides.

Although the crisis eased into greater American–British co-operation, Kipling was bewildered by what he felt was persistent anti-British sentiment in the US, especially in the press.<ref name="gilmour" /> He wrote in a letter that it felt like being "aimed at with a decanter across a friendly dinner table."<ref name="pinney" /> By January 1896 he had decided to end his family's "good wholesome life" in the US and seek their fortunes elsewhere.<ref name="carrington" />

A family dispute became the final straw. For some time, relations between Carrie and her brother Beatty Balestier had been strained, owing to his drinking and insolvency. In May 1896 an inebriated Beatty encountered Kipling on the street and threatened him with physical harm.<ref name="gilmour" /> The incident led to Beatty's eventual arrest, but in the subsequent hearing and the resulting publicity, Kipling's privacy was destroyed, and he was left feeling miserable and exhausted. In July 1896, a week before the hearing was to resume, the Kiplings packed their belongings, left the United States and returned to England.<ref name="carrington" />

===Devon===
[[File:Rock House - geograph.org.uk - 1082515.jpg|thumb|Kipling's Torquay house, with a blue plaque on the wall]]

By September 1896 the Kiplings were in [[Torquay]], Devon, on the south-western coast of England, in a hillside home (Rock House, Maidencombe) overlooking the [[English Channel]]. Although Kipling did not much care for his new house, whose design, he claimed, left its occupants feeling dispirited and gloomy, he managed to remain productive and socially active.<ref name="gilmour" />

Kipling was now a famous man, and in the previous two or three years had increasingly been making political pronouncements in his writings. The Kiplings had welcomed their first son, [[John Kipling|John]], in August 1897. Kipling had begun work on two poems, "[[Recessional (poem)|Recessional]]" (1897) and "[[The White Man's Burden]]" (1899), which were to create controversy when published. Regarded by some as anthems for enlightened and duty-bound empire-building (capturing the mood of the [[Victorian era]]), the poems were seen by others as propaganda for brazen-faced [[imperialism]] and its attendant racial attitudes; still others saw irony in the poems and warnings of the perils of empire.<ref name="gilmour" />

<blockquote><poem>Take up the White Man's burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
—"The White Man's Burden"<ref name="wmb">Kipling, Rudyard (1899). ''The White Man's Burden''. Published simultaneously in ''The Times'', London, and ''McClure's Magazine'' (US) 12 February 1899</ref>
</poem></blockquote>

There was also foreboding in the poems, a sense that all could yet come to naught.<ref>Snodgrass, Chris (2002). ''A Companion to Victorian Poetry''. Blackwell, Oxford.</ref>

<blockquote><poem>Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with [[Nineveh]] and [[Tyre, Lebanon|Tyre]]!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet.
Lest we forget – lest we forget!
—"Recessional"<ref>Kipling, Rudyard (July 1897). "Recessional". ''The Times'', London</ref></poem></blockquote>

A prolific writer during his time in Torquay, he also wrote ''Stalky & Co.'', a collection of [[school stories]] (born of his experience at the [[United Services College]] in [[Westward Ho!]]), whose juvenile protagonists display a know-it-all, cynical outlook on patriotism and authority. According to his family, Kipling enjoyed reading aloud stories from ''Stalky & Co.'' to them and often went into spasms of laughter over his own jokes.<ref name="gilmour" />

===Visits to South Africa===
[[File:Ralph, Landon, Gwynne and Kipling 1900-1901.jpg|thumb|upright|H.A. Gwynne, Julian Ralph, Perceval Landon, and Rudyard Kipling in South Africa, 1900–1901]]

In early 1898 the Kiplings travelled to South Africa for their winter holiday, so beginning an annual tradition which (except the following year) would last until 1908. They would stay in "The Woolsack", a house on [[Cecil Rhodes]]'s estate at [[Groote Schuur]] (now a student residence for the [[University of Cape Town]]), within walking distance of Rhodes' mansion.<ref>"Something of Myself", published 1935, South Africa Chapter</ref>

With his new reputation as ''Poet of the Empire'', Kipling was warmly received by some of the influential politicians of the [[Cape Colony]], including Rhodes, Sir [[Alfred Milner]] and [[Leander Starr Jameson]]. Kipling cultivated their friendship and came to admire the men and their politics. The period 1898–1910 was crucial in the history of South Africa and included the [[Second Boer War]] (1899–1902), the ensuing peace treaty, and the 1910 formation of the [[Union of South Africa]]. Back in England, Kipling wrote poetry in support of the British cause in the Boer War and on his next visit to South Africa in early 1900, became a correspondent for ''The Friend'' newspaper in [[Bloemfontein]], which had been commandeered by [[Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts|Lord Roberts]] for British troops.<ref>Reilly, Bernard F., Center for Research Libraries, Chicago, Illinois. [https://web.archive.org/web/20140222132453/http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-afresearch&month=0612&week=b&msg=rGSqyFg7ajBdQWonA2aDgg&user=&pw email to Marion Wallace] ''The Friend newspaper'', Orange Free State, South Africa.</ref>

Although his journalistic stint was to last only two weeks, it was Kipling's first work on a newspaper staff since he left ''The Pioneer'' in Allahabad more than ten years before.<ref name="gilmour" /> At ''The Friend'', he made lifelong friendships with [[Perceval Landon]], [[H. A. Gwynne]] and others.<ref>[[C. E. Carrington|Carrington, C. E.]] (1955). ''The life of Rudyard Kipling'', [[Doubleday & Co.]], Garden City, NY, p. 236.</ref> He also wrote articles published more widely expressing his views on the conflict.<ref name="NYT1900">{{cite news |last=Kipling |first=Rudyard |title=Kipling at Cape Town: Severe Arraignment of Treacherous Afrikanders and Demand for Condign Punishment By and By |work=The New York Times |page=21 |date=18 March 1900 |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1900/03/18/101053848.pdf |access-date=13 June 2018 |archive-date=25 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225184303/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1900/03/18/101053848.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Kipling penned an inscription for the [[Honoured Dead Memorial]] in Kimberley.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Aidin |first=Michael |date=29 July 2021 |title=Kipling and Memorials to the War Dead |url=https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/readers-guide/rg_kent_aidin-2.htm |access-date=27 April 2025 |website=The Kipling Society |language=en-GB}}</ref>

===Sussex===
[[File:Rudyard Kipling by Sir Philip Burne-Jones 1899.jpeg|thumb|upright|Kipling at his desk, 1899. Portrait by Burne-Jones.]]

In 1897 Kipling moved from Torquay to [[Rottingdean]], near [[Brighton]], East Sussex – first to North End House and then to the Elms.<ref>[http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_sussex2.htm "Kipling.s Sussex: The Elms"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121202100000/http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_sussex2.htm |date=2 December 2012 }}. Kipling.org.</ref> In 1902 Kipling bought [[Bateman's]], a house built in 1634 and located in rural [[Burwash]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Batemans and adjoining land, Park House Watermill and part of Dudwell Farm, purchased by Rudyard Kipling on 28 Jul 1902 |url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/0719dec7-4708-4d90-b3c2-c99aaaed3180#32-1 |website=[[The National Archives (United Kingdom)|The National Archives]] |access-date=17 June 2022}}</ref>

Bateman's was Kipling's home from 1902 until his death in 1936.<ref name="nationaltrust1"/> The house and its surrounding buildings, the mill and {{convert|33|acre|ha}}, were bought for £9,300. It had no bathroom, no running water upstairs and no electricity, but Kipling loved it: "Behold us, lawful owners of a grey stone lichened house – A.D. 1634 over the door – beamed, panelled, with old oak staircase, and all untouched and unfaked. It is a good and peaceable place. We have loved it ever since our first sight of it" (from a November 1902 letter).<ref>[[C. E. Carrington|Carrington, C. E.]] (1955). ''The life of Rudyard Kipling'', p. 286.</ref><ref name="nationaltrust1">{{cite web|url=http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/batemans/ |title=Bateman's |publisher=National Trust |access-date=23 June 2010 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140117171258/http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/batemans/ |archive-date=17 January 2014}}</ref>

In the non-fiction realm, he became involved in the debate over the British response to the rise in German naval power known as the [[Tirpitz Plan]], to build a fleet to challenge the [[Royal Navy]], publishing a series of articles in 1898 collected as ''A Fleet in Being''.<ref>{{Cite web |date=8 June 2021 |title=A Fleet in Being |url=https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/readers-guide/rg_fleet_intro.htm |access-date=1 June 2024 |website=The Kipling Society |language=en-GB}}</ref> On a visit to the United States in 1899, Kipling and his daughter Josephine developed [[pneumonia]], from which she eventually died.<ref>{{Cite news |date=7 March 1899 |title=JOSEPHINE KIPLING DEAD; The Eldest Child of the Author Succumbs to Pneumonia. MR. KIPLING IS DOING FINELY He Has Not Been Told of His Loss, as the Physicians Fear the Shock Might Cause a Relapse. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1899/03/07/archives/josephine-kipling-dead-the-eldest-child-of-the-author-succumbs-to.html |access-date=1 June 2024 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

[[File:"Kim's Gun" in 1903 detail, from- Leisure and gossip by the old Zamzamah gun that roared in the Battle of Puniput (cropped).jpg|alt=|thumb|("Kim's Gun" as seen in 1903) "He sat in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun [[Zam-Zammeh]], on her old platform, opposite the old Ajaibgher, the Wonder House, as the natives called the [[Lahore Museum]]."<br />-''[[Kim (novel)|Kim]]'']]

In the wake of his daughter's death, Kipling concentrated on collecting material for what became ''[[Just So Stories]] for Little Children'', published in 1902, the year after ''[[Kim (novel)|Kim]]''.<ref name="Writers History – Kipling Rudyard">{{cite web |url=http://writershistory.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=95&Itemid=41 |title=Writers History – Kipling Rudyard |work=writershistory.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150425042047/http://writershistory.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=95&Itemid=41 |archive-date=25 April 2015 }}</ref> The American art historian Janice Leoshko and the American literary scholar David Scott have argued that ''Kim'' disproves the claim by [[Edward Said]] that Kipling was a promoter of [[Orientalism]], since Kipling – who was deeply interested in Buddhism – presented Tibetan Buddhism in a fairly sympathetic light and aspects of the novel appeared to reflect a Buddhist understanding of the universe.<ref>[[#Scott|Scott]], pp. 318–319.</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Leoshko |first=J. |year=2001 |title=What is in Kim? Rudyard Kipling and Tibetan Buddhist Traditions |journal=South Asia Research |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=51–75|doi=10.1177/026272800102100103 |s2cid=145694033 }}</ref> Kipling was offended by the German Emperor [[Wilhelm II]]'s [[Hun speech]] ''([[:de:Hunnenrede|Hunnenrede]])'' in 1900, urging German troops being sent to China to crush the [[Boxer Rebellion]] to behave like "Huns" and take no prisoners.<ref name="auto3">[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], p. 206.</ref>

In a 1902 poem, ''The Rowers'', Kipling attacked the Kaiser as a threat to Britain and made the first use of the term "[[List of terms used for Germans|Hun]]" as an anti-German insult, using Wilhelm's own words and the actions of German troops in China to portray Germans as essentially [[barbarian]].<ref name="auto3"/> In an interview with the French newspaper ''[[Le Figaro]]'', the [[Francophile]] Kipling called Germany a menace and called for an Anglo-French alliance to stop it.<ref name="auto3"/> In another letter at the same time, Kipling described the "''unfrei'' peoples of Central Europe" as living in "the Middle Ages with machine guns".<ref name="auto3"/>

====Speculative fiction====
[[File:William Strang The author Rudyard Kipling.jpg|thumb|upright|Kipling as seen in 1901 by [[William Strang]]]]

Kipling wrote a number of [[speculative fiction]] short stories, including "[[The Army of a Dream]]", in which he sought to show a more efficient and responsible army than the hereditary bureaucracy of England at the time, and two [[science fiction]] stories: "[[With the Night Mail]]" (1905) and "As Easy As A.B.C." (1912). Both were set in the 21st century in Kipling's [[Aerial Board of Control]] universe. They read like modern [[hard science fiction]],<ref>{{cite book |author=Bennett, Arnold |title=Books and Persons Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908–1911 |location=London |publisher=Chatto & Windus |year=1917}}</ref> and introduced<ref>"[https://blog.archive.org/2007/07/30/airships-and-balloons/ Airships and Balloons]", archive.org, 30 July 2007.</ref> the literary technique known as [[indirect exposition]], which would later become one of the science fiction writer [[Robert Heinlein]]'s hallmarks. This technique is one that Kipling picked up in India, and used to solve the problem of his English readers not understanding much about Indian society when writing ''The Jungle Book''.<ref name=lerner>{{cite web |url=http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/facts_scifi.htm |title=A Master of Our Art: Rudyard Kipling and modern Science Fiction |author=Fred Lerner |website=The Kipling Society |access-date=5 March 2020 |archive-date=21 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200221194333/http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/facts_scifi.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

====Nobel laureate and beyond====
{{See also|1907 Nobel Prize in Literature}}

In 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, having been nominated in that year by [[Charles Oman]], professor at the [[University of Oxford]].<ref>[https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show.php?id=2474 "Nomination Database".] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161222092542/http://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show.php?id=2474 |date=22 December 2016 }} ''Nobelprize.org''. Retrieved on 4 May 2017.</ref> The prize citation said it was "in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author." Nobel prizes had been established in 1901 and Kipling was the first English-language recipient. At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 1907, the Permanent Secretary of the [[Swedish Academy]], [[Carl David af Wirsén]], praised both Kipling and three centuries of [[English literature]]:

<blockquote>The Swedish Academy, in awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature this year to Rudyard Kipling, desires to pay a tribute of homage to the literature of England, so rich in manifold glories, and to the greatest genius in the realm of narrative that that country has produced in our times.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1907/press.html |title=Nobel Prize in Literature 1907 – presentation Speech |publisher=Nobelprize.org |access-date=28 September 2006 |archive-date=31 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100131132108/http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1907/press.html |url-status=live }}</ref></blockquote>

To "book-end" this achievement came the publication of two connected poetry and story collections: ''[[Puck of Pook's Hill]]'' (1906), and ''[[Rewards and Fairies]]'' (1910). The latter contained the poem "[[If—]]". In a 1995 [[BBC]] opinion poll it was voted the UK's favourite poem.<ref name="Jones">{{cite book |author=Jones, Emma |title=The Literary Companion |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WELwa9Sds-EC&pg=PA25 |year=2004 |publisher=Robson |isbn=978-1-86105-798-3 |page=25}}</ref> This exhortation to self-control and stoicism is arguably Kipling's most famous poem.<ref name="Jones" />

Such was Kipling's popularity that he was asked by his friend [[Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook|Max Aitken]] to intervene in the [[1911 Canadian federal election]] on behalf of the Conservatives.<ref name="MacKenzie, David page 211">MacKenzie, David & Dutil, Patrice (2011). ''Canada 1911: The Decisive Election that Shaped the Country''. Toronto: Dundurn, p. 211. {{ISBN|1554889472}}.</ref> In 1911 the major issue in Canada was a [[Reciprocity (Canadian politics)|reciprocity]] treaty with the United States signed by the Liberal Prime Minister Sir [[Wilfrid Laurier]] and vigorously opposed by the Conservatives under Sir [[Robert Borden]]. On 7 September 1911, the [[Montreal Star|''Montreal Daily Star'']] newspaper published a front-page appeal against the agreement by Kipling, who wrote: "It is her own soul that Canada risks today. Once that soul is pawned for any consideration, Canada must inevitably conform to the commercial, legal, financial, social, and ethical standards which will be imposed on her by the sheer admitted weight of the United States."<ref name="MacKenzie, David page 211" /> At the time, the ''Montreal Daily Star'' was Canada's most read newspaper. Over the next week, Kipling's appeal was reprinted in every English newspaper in Canada and is credited with helping to turn Canadian public opinion against the Liberal government.<ref name="MacKenzie, David page 211" />

Kipling sympathised with the anti-[[Government of Ireland Act 1914|Home Rule]] stance of [[Irish Unionists]], who opposed Irish autonomy. He was friends with [[Edward Carson]], the Dublin-born leader of [[Ulster Unionism]], who raised the [[Ulster Volunteers]] to prevent Home Rule in Ireland. Kipling wrote in a letter to a friend that Ireland was not a nation, and that before the English arrived in 1169, the Irish were a gang of cattle thieves living in savagery and killing each other while "writing dreary poems" about it all. In his view it was only British rule that allowed Ireland to advance.<ref>[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], p. 242.</ref> A visit to Ireland in 1911 confirmed Kipling's prejudices. He wrote that the Irish countryside was beautiful, but spoiled by what he called the ugly homes of Irish farmers, with Kipling adding that God had made the Irish into poets having "deprived them of love of line or knowledge of colour."<ref name="auto5">[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], p. 243.</ref> In contrast, Kipling had nothing but praise for the "decent folk" of the Protestant minority and Unionist Ulster, free from the threat of "constant mob violence".<ref name="auto5"/>

Kipling wrote the poem "''Ulster''" in 1912, reflecting his Unionist politics. Kipling often referred to the Irish Unionists as "our party".<ref>[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], p. 241.</ref> Kipling had no sympathy or understanding for [[Irish nationalism]], seeing Home Rule as an act of treason by the government of the Liberal Prime Minister [[H. H. Asquith]] that would plunge Ireland into the Dark Ages and allow the Irish Catholic majority to oppress the Protestant minority.<ref>[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], pp. 242–244.</ref> The scholar [[Sir David Gilmour, 4th Baronet|David Gilmour]] wrote that Kipling's lack of understanding of Ireland could be seen in his attack on [[John Redmond]] – the Anglophile leader of the [[Irish Parliamentary Party]] who wanted Home Rule because he believed it was the best way of keeping the United Kingdom together – as a traitor working to break up the United Kingdom.<ref name="auto4">[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], p. 244.</ref> ''Ulster'' was first publicly read at an Unionist rally in Belfast, where the largest Union Jack ever made was unfolded.<ref name="auto4"/> Kipling admitted it was meant to strike a "hard blow" against the Asquith government's Home Rule bill: "Rebellion, rapine, hate, Oppression, wrong and greed, Are loosed to rule our fate, By England's act and deed."<ref name="auto5"/> ''Ulster'' generated much controversy with the Conservative MP Sir [[Mark Sykes]] – who as a Unionist was opposed to the Home Rule bill – condemning ''Ulster'' in ''[[The Morning Post]]'' as a "direct appeal to ignorance and a deliberate attempt to foster religious hate."<ref name="auto4"/>

Kipling was a staunch opponent of [[Bolshevism]], a position which he shared with his friend [[Henry Rider Haggard]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=6 March 1920 |title=The Times of Wednesday publishes a letter signed by Sir... |url=https://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/6th-march-1920/2/the-times-of-wednesday-publishes-a-letter-signed-b |access-date=2 January 2025 |website=The Spectator Archive}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kipling |first1=Rudyard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BGhdPAAACAAJ |title=Rudyard Kipling to Rider Haggard: The Record of a Friendship |last2=Haggard |first2=Henry Rider |date=1965 |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |isbn=978-0-8386-6881-8 |editor-last=Cohen |editor-first=Morton |pages=110–113 |language=en}}</ref> The two had bonded on Kipling's arrival in London in 1889, largely on the strength of their shared opinions, and remained lifelong friends.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Leibfried |first=Philip |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xP5aAAAAMAAJ&q=RUDYARD%20KIPLING%20AND%20SIR%20HENRY%20RIDER%20HAGGARD%20ON%20SCREEN |title=Rudyard Kipling and Sir Henry Rider Haggard on Screen, Stage, Radio, and Television |date=2000 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-0707-1 |pages= |language=en |chapter=Introduction}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kipling |first1=Rudyard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BGhdPAAACAAJ |title=Rudyard Kipling to Rider Haggard: The Record of a Friendship |last2=Haggard |first2=Henry Rider |date=1965 |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |isbn=978-0-8386-6881-8 |editor-last=Cohen |editor-first=Morton |language=en |chapter=Introduction}}</ref>

===Freemasonry===
According to the English magazine ''Masonic Illustrated'', Kipling became a [[Freemasonry|Freemason]] in about 1885, before the usual minimum age of 21,<ref name=Mackey>Mackey, Albert G. (1946). ''Encyclopedia of Freemasonry'', Vol. 1. Chicago: The Masonic History Co.</ref> being initiated into [[Masonic Temple (Lahore)|Hope and Perseverance Lodge No. 782]] in [[Lahore, Pakistan|Lahore]]. He later wrote to ''[[The Times]]'', "I was Secretary for some years of the Lodge... which included Brethren of at least four creeds. I was entered [as an Apprentice] by a member from [[Brahmo Somaj]], a [[Hindu]], passed [to the degree of Fellow Craft] by a [[Mohammedan]], and raised [to the degree of Master Mason] by an Englishman. Our [[Tyler (Masonic)|Tyler]] was an [[Indian Jew]]." Kipling received not only the three degrees of Craft Masonry but also the side degrees of [[Mark Master Mason]] and Royal Ark Mariner.<ref>[http://albertpike.wordpress.com/kipling-mason/ Our brother Rudyard Kipling. Masonic lecture]; {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120308201720/http://albertpike.wordpress.com/kipling-mason/ |date=8 March 2012 }}. Albertpike.wordpress.com (7 October 2011). Retrieved on 4 May 2017.</ref>

Kipling so loved his Masonic experience that he memorialised its ideals in his poem "The Mother Lodge",<ref name=Mackey/> and used the fraternity and its symbols as vital plot devices in his novella ''[[The Man Who Would Be King]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.hamiltondistrictcmasons.org/upload/lecture_file111.pdf |title=Official Visit to Meridian Lodge No. 687 |date=12 February 2014 |access-date=15 September 2017 |archive-date=15 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170915161025/http://www.hamiltondistrictcmasons.org/upload/lecture_file111.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

==First World War (1914–1918)==
At the beginning of the [[First World War]] Kipling, like others, wrote pamphlets and poems enthusiastically supporting the UK war aim of restoring Belgium after it had been [[German occupation of Belgium during World War I|occupied by Germany]], together with generalised statements that Britain was standing up for the cause of good. In September 1914 Kipling was asked by the government to write [[British propaganda during World War I|propaganda]], to which he agreed.<ref name="Bilsing 2000">{{cite web |last=Bilsing |first=Tracey |title=The Process of Manufacture of Rudyard Kipling's Private Propaganda |publisher=War Literature and the Arts |date=Summer 2000 |url=http://www.wlajournal.com/12_1/Bilsing.pdf |access-date=15 August 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402195831/http://www.wlajournal.com/12_1/Bilsing.pdf |archive-date=2 April 2015 }}</ref> Kipling's pamphlets and stories were popular with the British people during the war. His major themes were to glorify the British military as ''the'' place for heroic men to be, while citing German atrocities against Belgian civilians and stories of women brutalised by a horrific war unleashed by Germany, yet surviving and triumphing in spite of their suffering.<ref name="Bilsing 2000" />

Kipling was enraged by reports of the [[Rape of Belgium]] together with [[sinking of the RMS Lusitania|the sinking]] of the {{RMS|Lusitania|}} in 1915, which he saw as a deeply inhumane act, leading him to view the war as a crusade for civilisation against barbarism.<ref name="Gilmour, David page 250">[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], p. 250.</ref> In a 1915 speech, Kipling declared, "There was no crime, no cruelty, no abomination that the mind of men can conceive of which the German has not perpetrated, is not perpetrating, and will not perpetrate if he is allowed to go on... Today, there are only two divisions in the world... human beings and Germans."<ref name="Gilmour, David page 250" />

Alongside his passionate [[Anti-German sentiment|antipathy towards Germany]], Kipling was privately deeply critical of how the war was being fought by the [[British Army]]. Shocked by the heavy losses that the [[British Expeditionary Force (World War I)|British Expeditionary Force]] had taken by the autumn of 1914, he blamed the entire pre-war generation of British politicians who, Kipling argued, had failed to learn the lessons of the [[Second Boer War|Boer War]]. Thus thousands of British soldiers were paying with their lives for their failure in the fields of France and Belgium.<ref name="Gilmour, David page 251">[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], p. 251.</ref>

Kipling scorned men who shirked duty in the First World War. In "The New Army in Training"<ref>{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/stream/newarmyintrainin00kiplrich/newarmyintrainin00kiplrich_djvu.txt |title=Full text of 'The new army in training' |work=archive.org|year=1915 }}</ref> (1915), He concluded by saying:

<blockquote>This much we can realise, even though we are so close to it, the old safe instinct saves us from triumph and exultation. But what will be the position in years to come of the young man who has deliberately elected to outcaste himself from this all-embracing brotherhood? What of his family, and, above all, what of his descendants, when the books have been closed and the last balance struck of sacrifice and sorrow in every hamlet, village, parish, suburb, city, shire, district, province, and Dominion throughout the Empire?</blockquote>

In 1914 Kipling was one of 53 British authors{{snd}}a number that included [[H. G. Wells]], [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] and [[Thomas Hardy]]{{snd}}who signed their names to the "Authors' Declaration." This manifesto declared that the German invasion of Belgium had been a brutal crime, and that Britain "could not without dishonour have refused to take part in the present war."<ref>{{cite news |title=1914 Authors' Manifesto Defending Britain's Involvement in WWI, Signed by H. G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle |url=https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/10/british-authors-and-wwi-propaganda-manifesto-signed-by-h-g-wells-arthur-conan-doyle-rudyard-kipling.html |access-date=27 February 2020 |work=Slate |archive-date=27 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200227070407/https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/10/british-authors-and-wwi-propaganda-manifesto-signed-by-h-g-wells-arthur-conan-doyle-rudyard-kipling.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Death of John Kipling ===
[[File:My Boy Jack John Kipling.jpg|thumb|upright|2nd Lt John Kipling]]
[[File:Memorial to John Kipling at Burwash Church - geograph.org.uk - 1573481.jpg|thumb|upright|Memorial to 2nd Lt John Kipling in [[Burwash]] Parish Church, Sussex, England]]

Kipling's only son, [[John Kipling|John]], was killed in action at the [[Battle of Loos]] in September 1915, at age 18. John initially wanted to join the [[Royal Navy]], but having had his application turned down due to poor eyesight, he applied for military service as an army officer. Again, his eyesight was an issue during the medical examination. He tried twice to enlist, but was rejected. His father had been lifelong friends with [[Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts|Lord Roberts]], former commander-in-chief of the British Army, and colonel of the [[Irish Guards]], and at Rudyard's request, John was accepted into the Irish Guards.<ref name="Bilsing 2000" />

John Kipling was sent to Loos two days into the battle in a reinforcement contingent. He was last seen stumbling through the mud blindly, with a possible facial injury. A body identified as his was found in 1992, although that identification has been challenged.<ref name="John">{{cite news |last1=Brown |first1=Jonathan |title=The Great War and its aftermath: The son who haunted Kipling |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-great-war-and-its-aftermath-the-son-who-haunted-kipling-413795.html |access-date=3 May 2018 |work=The Independent |date=28 August 2006 |quote=It was only his father's intervention that allowed John Kipling to serve on the Western Front – and the poet never got over his death. |archive-date=3 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180503182230/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-great-war-and-its-aftermath-the-son-who-haunted-kipling-413795.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Quinlan |first1=Mark |title=The controversy over John Kipling's burial place |url=https://ukniwm.wordpress.com/2007/12/11/the-controversy-over-john-kiplings-burial-place/ |website=War Memorials Archive Blog |access-date=3 May 2018 |date=11 December 2007 |archive-date=18 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180918194146/https://ukniwm.wordpress.com/2007/12/11/the-controversy-over-john-kiplings-burial-place/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Solving the mystery of Rudyard Kipling's son |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35321716 |work=BBC News Magazine |access-date=3 May 2018 |date=18 January 2016 |archive-date=20 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180420023628/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35321716 |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2015 the [[Commonwealth War Grave Commission]] confirmed that it had correctly identified the burial place of John Kipling;<ref>{{cite news |last1=McGreevy |first1=Ronan |title=Grave of Rudyard Kipling's son correctly named, says authority |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/grave-of-rudyard-kipling-s-son-correctly-named-says-authority-1.2366673 |access-date=3 May 2018 |newspaper=The Irish Times |date=25 September 2015 |archive-date=3 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180503180620/https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/grave-of-rudyard-kipling-s-son-correctly-named-says-authority-1.2366673 |url-status=live }}</ref> they recorded his date of death as 27 September 1915, and that he is buried at St Mary's A.D.S. Cemetery, [[Haisnes]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Casualty record: Lieutenant Kipling, John |url=https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/3078953/kipling,-john/ |publisher=[[Commonwealth War Graves Commission]] |access-date=3 May 2018 |archive-date=4 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180504010850/https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/3078953/kipling,-john/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

After his son's death, in a poem titled "Epitaphs of the War",<ref>"[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57409/epitaphs-of-the-war Epitaphs of the War]"</ref> Kipling wrote "If any question why we died / Tell them, because our fathers lied." Critics have speculated that these words may express Kipling's guilt over his role in arranging John's commission.<ref>Webb, George (1997). Foreword to: Kipling, Rudyard. ''The Irish Guards in the Great War''. 2 vols. Spellmount. p. 9.</ref> Professor Tracy Bilsing contends that the line refers to Kipling's disgust that British leaders failed to learn the lessons of the Boer War, and were unprepared for the struggle with Germany in 1914, with the "lie" of the "fathers" being that the British Army was prepared for war when it was not.<ref name="Bilsing 2000"/>

John's death has been linked to Kipling's 1916 poem "[[My Boy Jack (poem)|My Boy Jack]]", by the play ''[[My Boy Jack (play)|My Boy Jack]]'' and its subsequent [[My Boy Jack (film)|television adaptation]], along with the documentary ''[[Rudyard Kipling: A Remembrance Tale]]''. However, the poem was originally published at the head of a story about the [[Battle of Jutland]] and appears to refer to a death at sea; the "Jack" referred to may be the boy VC [[Jack Cornwell]], or perhaps a generic "[[Jack Tar]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_jack1.htm|title=Notes on "My Boy Jack"|last=Southam|first=Brian|date=6 March 2010|access-date=23 July 2011|archive-date=14 November 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121114033829/http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_jack1.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> In the Kipling family, Jack was the name of the family dog, while John Kipling was always John, making the identification of the protagonist of "My Boy Jack" with John Kipling questionable. However, Kipling was emotionally devastated by the death of his son. He is said to have assuaged his grief by reading the novels of [[Jane Austen]] aloud to his wife and daughter.<ref>"The Many Lovers of Miss Jane Austen", BBC2 broadcast, 9&nbsp;pm 23 December 2011</ref> During the war, he wrote a booklet ''[[The Fringes of the Fleet]]''<ref>''The Fringes of the Fleet'', Macmillan & Co., 1916.</ref> containing essays and poems on various nautical subjects of the war. Some of these were set to music by the English composer [[Edward Elgar]].<ref name="BritishLibrary">{{cite web|url=https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/fringes-of-fleet|title='Fringes of the Fleet' by Edward Elgar and Rudyard Kipling|publisher=[[Kurt Enoch|Enoch and Sons]]|last1=Elgar|first1=Edward|last2=Kipling|first2=Rudyard|access-date=7 October 2021|archive-date=7 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211007202556/https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/fringes-of-fleet|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Kipling became friends with a French soldier named Maurice Hammoneau, whose life had been saved in the First World War when his copy of ''Kim'', which he had in his left breast pocket, stopped a bullet. Hammoneau presented Kipling with the book, with bullet still embedded, and his [[Croix de Guerre]] as a token of gratitude. They continued to correspond, and when Hammoneau had a son, Kipling insisted on returning the book and medal.<ref>Original correspondence between Kipling and Maurice Hammoneau and his son Jean Hammoneau concerning the affair is at the Library of Congress under the title: ''How "Kim" saved the life of a French soldier: a remarkable series of autograph letters of Rudyard Kipling, with the soldier's Croix de Guerre, 1918–1933''. {{LCCN|2007566938}}. The library also possesses the actual French 389-page paperback edition of ''Kim'' that saved Hammoneau's life, {{LCCN|2007581430}}.</ref>

On 1 August 1918 the poem "The Old Volunteer" appeared under his name in ''[[The Times]]''. The next day, he wrote to the newspaper to disclaim authorship and a correction appeared. Although ''The Times'' employed a private detective to investigate, the detective appears to have suspected Kipling of being the author, and the identity of the hoaxer was never established.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://greatwarfiction.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/a-kipling-hoax/ |date=27 May 1918 |work=The Times |title=A Kipling Hoax |author=Simmers, George |access-date=17 February 2013 |archive-date=3 March 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140303171721/http://greatwarfiction.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/a-kipling-hoax/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

==After the war (1918–1936)==
[[File:Kipling TIME cover 19260927.jpg|thumb|upright|Kipling, aged 60, on the cover of [[Time (magazine)|''Time'' magazine]], 27 September 1926]]

Partly in response to John's death, Kipling joined Sir [[Fabian Ware]]'s Imperial War Graves Commission (now the [[Commonwealth War Graves Commission]]), the group responsible for the garden-like British war graves that can be found to this day dotted along the former [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] and the other places in the world where British Empire troops lie buried. His main contributions to the project were his selection of the biblical phrase, "[[Their Name Liveth For Evermore]]" ([[Sirach|Ecclesiasticus]] 44.14, KJV), found on the [[Stone of Remembrance|Stones of Remembrance]] in larger war cemeteries, and his suggestion of the phrase "Known unto God" for the gravestones of unidentified servicemen. He also chose the inscription "The Glorious Dead" on the [[Cenotaph#The Cenotaph, London|Cenotaph]], Whitehall, London. Additionally, he wrote a two-volume history of the [[Irish Guards]], his son's regiment, published in 1923 and seen as one of the finest examples of regimental history.<ref>Kipling, Rudyard (1923). The ''Irish Guards in the Great War''. 2 vols. London.</ref>

Kipling's short story "The Gardener" depicts visits to the war cemeteries, and the poem "[[The King's Pilgrimage]]" (1922) a journey which [[King George V]] made, touring the cemeteries and memorials under construction by the [[Commonwealth War Graves Commission|Imperial War Graves Commission]]. With the increasing prevalence of the automobile, Kipling became a motoring correspondent for the British press, writing enthusiastically of trips around England and abroad, though he was usually driven by a chauffeur.

After the war, Kipling was sceptical of the [[Fourteen Points]] and the [[League of Nations]], but had hopes that the United States would abandon isolationism and the post-war world be dominated by an Anglo-French-American alliance.<ref name="Gilmour, David page 273">[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], p. 273.</ref> He hoped the United States would take on a League of Nations mandate for [[Armenia]] as the best way of preventing isolationism, and hoped that [[Theodore Roosevelt]], whom Kipling admired, would again become president.<ref name="Gilmour, David page 273" /> Kipling was saddened by Roosevelt's death in 1919, believing him to be the only American politician capable of keeping the United States in the "game" of world politics.<ref>[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], pp. 273–274.</ref>

Kipling was hostile towards [[communism]], writing of the [[October Revolution|Bolshevik take-over]] in 1917 that one sixth of the world had "passed bodily out of civilization".<ref name="auto6">[[#Hodgson|Hodgson]], p. 1060.</ref> In a poem in 1918 Kipling wrote of [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Soviet Russia]] that everything good in Russia had been destroyed by the Bolsheviks – all that was left was "the sound of weeping and the sight of burning fire, and the shadow of a people trampled into the mire."<ref name="auto6"/>

In 1920 Kipling co-founded the [[Liberty League (Historic)|Liberty League]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://jot101.com/2015/11/the-liberty-league-campaign-agains/ |title=The Liberty League – a campaign against Bolshevism |website=jot101.com |date=20 November 2015 |access-date=2 January 2017 |archive-date=3 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170103003545/http://jot101.com/2015/11/the-liberty-league-campaign-agains/ |url-status=live }}</ref> with [[H. Rider Haggard|Haggard]] and [[George Clarke, 1st Baron Sydenham of Combe|Lord Sydenham]]. This short-lived enterprise focused on promoting classic liberal ideals as a response to the rising power of communist tendencies within Great Britain, or as Kipling put it, "to combat the advance of Bolshevism."<ref>Miller, David and Dinan, William (2008) ''A Century of Spin''. Pluto Press. {{ISBN|978-0-7453-2688-7}}</ref><ref>[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], p. 275.</ref>

[[File:Rudyard Kipling at St Andrews 1923.jpg|thumb|left|Kipling (second from left) as rector of the [[University of St Andrews]], Scotland, in 1923]]

In 1922 Kipling, having referred to the work of engineers in some of his poems, such as "The Sons of Martha", "Sappers" and "[[McAndrew's Hymn]]",<ref>Kipling, Rudyard (1940) ''The Definitive edition of Rudyard Kipling's verse''. Hodder & Stoughton.</ref> and in other writings, including short-story anthologies such as ''The Day's Work'',<ref>{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/details/dayswork04kiplgoog |title=The day's work |work=Internet Archive|year=1898 }}</ref> was asked by a [[University of Toronto]] civil engineering professor, [[Herbert E. T. Haultain]], for assistance in developing a dignified obligation and ceremony for graduating engineering students. Kipling was enthusiastic in his response and shortly produced both, formally titled "[[The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer]]". Today, engineering graduates all across Canada are presented with an [[Iron Ring|iron ring]] at a ceremony to remind them of their obligation to society.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ironring.ca/ |title=The Iron Ring |publisher=Ironring.ca |access-date=10 September 2008 |archive-date=30 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110430202754/http://www.ironring.ca/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ironring.ca/background.php/ |title=The Calling of an Engineer |publisher=Ironring.ca |access-date=24 November 2012 |archive-date=3 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181003141912/http://www.ironring.ca/background.php/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> In 1922 Kipling became [[Rector of the University of St Andrews|Lord Rector of the University of St Andrews]], a three-year position.

Kipling, as a [[Francophile]], argued strongly for an Anglo-French alliance to uphold the peace, calling Britain and France in 1920 the "twin fortresses of European civilization".<ref name="Gilmour, David pages 300">[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], p. 300.</ref> Similarly, Kipling repeatedly warned against revising the [[Treaty of Versailles]] in Germany's favour, which he predicted would lead to a new world war.<ref name="Gilmour, David pages 300" /> An admirer of [[Raymond Poincaré]], Kipling was one of few British intellectuals who supported the French [[Occupation of the Ruhr]] in 1923, at a time when the British government and most public opinion was against the French position.<ref name="Gilmour, David pages 300-301">[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], pp. 300–301.</ref> In contrast to the popular British view of Poincaré as a cruel bully intent on impoverishing Germany with unreasonable reparations, Kipling argued that he was rightfully trying to preserve France as a great power in the face of an unfavourable situation.<ref name="Gilmour, David pages 300-301" /> Kipling argued that even before 1914, Germany's larger economy and higher birth rate had made that country stronger than France; with much of France devastated by war and the French suffering heavy losses meant that its low birth rate would give it trouble, while Germany was mostly undamaged and still with a higher birth rate. So he reasoned that the future would bring German domination if Versailles were revised in Germany's favour, and it was madness for Britain to press France to do so.<ref name="Gilmour, David pages 300-301" />

[[File:Rudyard Kipling, by Elliott & Fry (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright|Kipling late in his life, portrait by [[Elliott & Fry]]]]

In 1924 Kipling was opposed to the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] government of [[Ramsay MacDonald]] as "Bolshevism without bullets". He believed Labour was a communist front organisation, and "excited orders and instructions from Moscow" would expose Labour as such to the British people.<ref>[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], p. 293.</ref> Kipling's views were on the political right. Though he admired [[Benito Mussolini]] to some extent in the 1920s, he was against [[fascism]], calling [[Oswald Mosley]] "a bounder and an ''arriviste''". By 1935 he was calling Mussolini a deranged and dangerous egomaniac and in 1933 wrote, "The Hitlerites are out for blood".<ref>[[#Gilmour|Gilmour]], pp. 302 and 304.</ref>

Despite his [[anti-communism]], Kipling was popular with Russian readers in the interwar period. Many younger Russian poets and writers, such as [[Konstantin Simonov]], were influenced by him.<ref name="auto7">[[#Hodgson|Hodgson]], pp. 1059–1060.</ref> Kipling's clarity of style, use of colloquial language and employment of rhythm and rhyme were seen as major innovations in poetry that appealed to many younger Russian poets.<ref>[[#Hodgson|Hodgson]], pp. 1062–1063.</ref> Though it was obligatory for Soviet journals to begin translations of Kipling with an attack on him as a "[[fascist (insult)|fascist]]" and an "imperialist", such was Kipling's popularity with Russian readers that his works were not banned in the [[Soviet Union]] until 1939, with the signing of the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]].<ref name="auto7"/> The ban was lifted in 1941 after [[Operation Barbarossa]], when Britain become a Soviet ally, but imposed again with the [[Cold War]] in 1946.<ref>[[#Hodgson|Hodgson]], p. 1059.</ref>

[[File:Kipling swastika.svg|left|upright|A left-facing [[swastika]] in 1911, an Indian symbol of good luck|thumb]]
[[File:Kipling cover art.jpg|thumb|Covers of two of Kipling's books from 1919 (l) and 1930 (r), showing the removal of the swastika]]

Many older editions of Rudyard Kipling's books have a [[swastika]] printed on the cover, associated with a picture of an elephant carrying a lotus flower, reflecting the influence of Indian culture. Kipling's use of the swastika was based on the Indian sun symbol conferring good luck and the [[Sanskrit]] word meaning "fortunate" or "well-being".<ref name="Smith">Smith, Michael. [http://www.kipling.org.uk/facts_swastik.htm "Kipling and the Swastika"]; {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130303163342/http://www.kipling.org.uk/facts_swastik.htm |date=3 March 2013 }}. Kipling.org.</ref> He used the swastika symbol in both right and left-facing forms, and it was in general use by others at the time.<ref>Schliemann, H. ''Troy and its Remains''. London: Murray, 1875, pp. 102, 119–120.</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/library/arts/072900tank-swastika.html |title=One of the World's Great Symbols Strives for a Comeback |first=Sarah |last=Boxer |date=29 June 2000 |access-date=7 May 2012 |publisher=The New York Times |work=Think Tank |archive-date=18 January 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160118172914/http://www.nytimes.com/library/arts/072900tank-swastika.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

In a note to [[Edward Bok]] after the death of Lockwood Kipling in 1911, Rudyard said: "I am sending with this for your acceptance, as some little memory of my father to whom you were so kind, the original of one of the plaques that he used to make for me. I thought it being the Swastika would be appropriate for your Swastika. May it bring you even more good fortune."<ref name="Smith" /> Once the swastika had become widely associated with [[Adolf Hitler]] and the [[Nazis]], Kipling ordered that it should no longer adorn his books.<ref name="Smith" /> Less than a year before his death, Kipling gave a speech (titled "An Undefended Island") to the [[Royal Society of St George]] on 6 May 1935, warning of the danger which [[Nazi Germany]] posed to Britain.<ref>Rudyard Kipling, ''War Stories and Poems'' (Oxford Paperbacks, 1999), pp. xxiv–xxv.</ref>

Kipling scripted the first [[Royal Christmas Message]], delivered via the BBC's [[BBC World Service|Empire Service]] by [[George V]] in 1932.<ref name="Knight">{{cite web |last1=Knight |first1=Sam |title='London Bridge is down': the secret plan for the days after the Queen's death |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/16/what-happens-when-queen-elizabeth-dies-london-bridge |website=The Guardian |access-date=12 October 2017 |date=17 March 2017 |archive-date=27 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190527080852/https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/16/what-happens-when-queen-elizabeth-dies-london-bridge |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Rose |first=Kenneth |author-link=Kenneth Rose |title=King George V |publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson |year=1983 |location=London | pages=394 |isbn=978-1-84212-001-9}}</ref> In 1934, he published a short story in ''[[The Strand Magazine]]'', "Proofs of Holy Writ", postulating that [[William Shakespeare]] had helped to polish the prose of the [[King James Bible]].<ref>''Short Stories from the Strand'', The Folio Society, 1992.</ref>

==Death==
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Kipling kept writing until the early 1930s, but at a slower pace and with less success than before. On the night of 12 January 1936 he suffered a haemorrhage in his small intestine. He underwent surgery, but died at [[Middlesex Hospital]] in London less than a week later on 18 January 1936, at the age of 70, of a [[perforated ulcer|perforated]] [[duodenal ulcer]].<ref name="Ricketts2000">{{cite book |author=Harry Ricketts |title=Rudyard Kipling: A Life |url=https://archive.org/details/rudyardkipling00harr|url-access=registration |access-date=18 July 2013 |year=2000 |publisher=Carroll & Graf |isbn=978-0-7867-0830-7 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/rudyardkipling00harr/page/388 388]–}}</ref><ref>Rudyard Kipling's Waltzing Ghost: The Literary Heritage of Brown's Hotel, paragraph 11, [[Sandra Jackson-Opoku]], Literary Traveler.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=5HnmpXgPiYPt0hHpduoYbg&scan=1|title=Index entry|access-date=15 November 2020|work=FreeBMD|publisher=ONS|archive-date=14 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210814130541/https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=5HnmpXgPiYPt0hHpduoYbg&scan=1|url-status=live}}</ref> Kipling's body lay in state in the [[Fitzrovia Chapel]], part of Middlesex Hospital, after his death, and is commemorated with a plaque near the altar. His death had previously been [[List of premature obituaries|incorrectly announced]] in a magazine, to which he wrote, "I've just read that I am dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers."<ref>Chernega, Carol (2011). [https://books.google.com/books?id=77YpJytZXhUC&pg=PA90 ''A Dream House: Exploring the Literary Homes of England'']. p. 90. Dog Ear Publishing. {{ISBN|1457502461}}.</ref>

The pallbearers at the funeral included Kipling's cousin, Prime Minister [[Stanley Baldwin]], and the marble casket was covered by a [[Union Jack]].<ref name="westminster">[http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/rudyard-kipling "History – Rudyard Kipling"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120817071938/http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/rudyard-kipling |date=17 August 2012 }}. Westminster abbey.org.</ref> Kipling was cremated at [[Golders Green Crematorium]] in north-west London, and his ashes interred at [[Poets' Corner]], part of the south transept of [[Westminster Abbey]], next to the graves of [[Charles Dickens]] and [[Thomas Hardy]].<ref name="westminster" /> Kipling's will was proven on 6 April, with his estate valued at £168,141 2s. 11d. (roughly equivalent to £{{formatnum:{{Inflation|UK|168141|1936|r=0}}}} in {{Inflation-year|UK}}).<ref name="probate">{{cite web |url=https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/Calendar?surname=Kipling&yearOfDeath=1936&page=2#calendar |title=Kipling, Rudyard |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=1936 |website=probatesearchservice.gov |publisher=UK Government |access-date=11 August 2019 |archive-date=26 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126101138/https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/Calendar?surname=Kipling&yearOfDeath=1936&page=2#calendar |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}}

==Legacy==
In 2002 Kipling's ''[[Just So Stories]]'' featured on a [[Great Britain commemorative stamps 2000–2009|series of UK postage stamps]] issued by the [[Royal Mail]] to mark the centenary of the publication of the book.<ref>{{cite news |title=How the literary chameleon got his kudos |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/how-the-literary-chameleon-got-his-kudos-9196133.html |access-date=19 September 2022 |newspaper=The Independent |date=15 January 2002 |archive-date=20 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220920223739/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/how-the-literary-chameleon-got-his-kudos-9196133.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2010, the [[International Astronomical Union]] approved the naming of a crater on the planet [[Mercury (planet)|Mercury]] after Kipling – one of ten newly discovered [[impact crater]]s observed by the [[MESSENGER]] spacecraft in 2008–2009.<ref>Savage, Sam, [http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1837142/mercury_craters_receive_new_names/index.html "Mercury Craters Receive New Names"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111123092336/http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1837142/mercury_craters_receive_new_names/index.html |date=23 November 2011 }} – Article from the ''Red Orbit'' News network 16 March 2010. Retrieved 18 March 2010.</ref> In 2012 an extinct species of crocodile, ''[[Goniopholis kiplingi]]'', was named in his honour "in recognition for his enthusiasm for natural sciences."<ref name="BBC">{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-17446330 |title=Rudyard Kipling inspires naming of prehistoric crocodile |date=20 March 2011 |work=[[BBC Online]] |access-date=20 March 2012 |archive-date=22 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120322185851/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-17446330 |url-status=live }}</ref> More than 50 unpublished poems by Kipling, discovered by the American scholar Thomas Pinney, were released for the first time in March 2013.<ref>{{cite news |title=50 unseen Rudyard Kipling poems discovered |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/feb/25/rudyard-kipling-poems-discovered |work=The Guardian |access-date=26 February 2013 |location=London |first=Alison |last=Flood |date=25 February 2013 |archive-date=9 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131209192318/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/feb/25/rudyard-kipling-poems-discovered |url-status=live }}</ref>

Kipling's writing has strongly influenced that of others. His stories for adults remain in print and have garnered high praise from writers such as [[Randall Jarrell]], who wrote: "After you have read Kipling's fifty or seventy-five best stories you realize that few men have written this many stories of this much merit, and that very few have written more and better stories."<ref>Jarrell, Randall (1999). "On Preparing to Read Kipling." ''No Other Book: Selected Essays''. New York: HarperCollins.</ref>

His children's stories remain popular and his ''Jungle Books'' made into several films. The first was made by the producer [[Alexander Korda]]. Other films have been produced by [[The Walt Disney Company]]. A number of his poems were set to music by [[Percy Grainger]]. A series of short films based on some of his stories was broadcast by the BBC in 1964.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298668/ |title=The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling |publisher=[[IMDb]] }}</ref> Kipling's work is still popular today.

The poet [[T. S. Eliot]] edited ''[[A Choice of Kipling's Verse]]'' (1941) with an introductory essay.<ref>[[#Eliot|Eliot]]. Eliot's essay occupies 31 pages.</ref> Eliot was aware of the complaints that had been levelled against Kipling and he dismissed them one by one: that Kipling is "a Tory" using his verse to transmit right wing political views, or "a journalist" pandering to popular taste; while Eliot writes: "I cannot find any justification for the charge that he held a doctrine of race superiority."<ref>[[#Eliot|Eliot]], p. 29.</ref> Eliot finds instead:

{{Blockquote|An immense gift for using words, an amazing curiosity and power of observation with his mind and with all his senses, the mask of the entertainer, and beyond that a queer gift of second sight, of transmitting messages from elsewhere, a gift so disconcerting when we are made aware of it that thenceforth we are never sure when it is ''not'' present: all this makes Kipling a writer impossible wholly to understand and quite impossible to belittle.|T. S. Eliot<ref>[[#Eliot|Eliot]], p. 22.</ref>}}

Of Kipling's verse, such as his ''[[Barrack-Room Ballads]]'', Eliot writes "of a number of poets who have written great poetry, only... a very few whom I should call great verse writers. And unless I am mistaken, Kipling's position in this class is not only high, but unique."<ref>[[#Eliot|Eliot]], p. 36.</ref>

In response to Eliot, [[George Orwell]] wrote a long consideration of Kipling's work for ''[[Horizon (British magazine)|Horizon]]'' in 1942, noting that although as a "jingo imperialist" Kipling was "morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting", his work had many qualities which ensured that while "every enlightened person has despised him... nine-tenths of those enlightened persons are forgotten and Kipling is in some sense still there.":

{{blockquote|One reason for Kipling's power [was] his sense of responsibility, which made it possible for him to have a world-view, even though it happened to be a false one. Although he had no direct connexion with any political party, Kipling was a Conservative, a thing that does not exist nowadays. Those who now call themselves Conservatives are either Liberals, Fascists or the accomplices of Fascists. He identified himself with the ruling power and not with the opposition. In a gifted writer this seems to us strange and even disgusting, but it did have the advantage of giving Kipling a certain grip on reality. The ruling power is always faced with the question, 'In such and such circumstances, what would you ''do?''<nowiki>'</nowiki>, whereas the opposition is not obliged to take responsibility or make any real decisions. Where it is a permanent and pensioned opposition, as in England, the quality of its thought deteriorates accordingly. Moreover, anyone who starts out with a pessimistic, reactionary view of life tends to be justified by events, for Utopia never arrives and 'the gods of the copybook headings', as Kipling put it, always return. Kipling sold out to the British governing class, not financially but emotionally. This warped his political judgement, for the British ruling class were not what he imagined, and it led him into abysses of folly and snobbery, but he gained a corresponding advantage from having at least tried to imagine what action and responsibility are like. It is a great thing in his favour that he is not witty, not 'daring', has no wish to ''[[Épater la bourgeoisie|épater les bourgeois]]''. He dealt largely in platitudes, and since we live in a world of platitudes, much of what he said sticks. Even his worst follies seem less shallow and less irritating than the 'enlightened' utterances of the same period, such as Wilde's epigrams or the collection of cracker-mottoes at the end of ''[[Man and Superman]]''.|George Orwell<ref>{{cite journal |last=Orwell |first=George |title=Rudyard Kipling |journal=[[Horizon (British magazine)|Horizon]] |date=February 1942 |url=http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/kipling/english/e_rkip |access-date=4 December 2013 |archive-date=12 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131212053050/http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/kipling/english/e_rkip |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

In 1939 the poet [[W. H. Auden]] celebrated Kipling in a similarly ambiguous way in his elegy for [[W. B. Yeats]]. Auden deleted this section from later editions of his poems.

<blockquote><poem>
Time, that is intolerant
Of the brave and innocent,
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique,

Worships language, and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives;
Pardons cowardice, conceit,
Lays its honours at his feet.

Time, that with this strange excuse,
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon [[Paul Claudel]],
Pardons him for writing well.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Auden_InMemoryOfWBYeats.pdf|title=Selected Poems|last=Auden|first=W. H.|chapter=In Memory of W. B. Yeats|access-date=28 December 2019|archive-date=6 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806202144/https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Auden_InMemoryOfWBYeats.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> 
</poem></blockquote>

The poet [[Alison Brackenbury]] writes "Kipling is poetry's Dickens, an outsider and journalist with an unrivalled ear for sound and speech."<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/publications/poetrynews/hero/kipling/ |title=Poetry Hero: Rudyard Kipling |publisher=The Poetry Society |access-date=11 February 2013 |author=Brackenbury, Alison |journal=Poetry News |issue=Spring 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130523181622/http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/publications/poetrynews/hero/kipling/ |archive-date=23 May 2013 }}</ref>

The English folk singer [[Peter Bellamy]] was a lover of Kipling's poetry, much of which he believed to have been influenced by English traditional folk forms. He recorded several albums of Kipling's verse set to traditional airs, or to tunes of his own composition written in traditional style.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/26/arts/peter-bellamy-47-british-folk-singer-who-wrote-opera.html |title=Peter Bellamy, 47; British Folk Singer Who Wrote Opera |first=Jon |last=Pareles |date=26 September 1991 |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=15 July 2014 |archive-date=26 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181126033200/https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/26/arts/peter-bellamy-47-british-folk-singer-who-wrote-opera.html |url-status=live }}</ref> However, in the case of the bawdy folk song, "[[The Bastard King of England]]", which is commonly credited to Kipling, it is believed that the song is actually misattributed.<ref name="bastardking">{{cite web |url=http://www.fresnostate.edu/folklore/ballads/EM122.html |title=Bastard King of England, The |publisher=fresnostate.edu |access-date=19 July 2016 |archive-date=22 August 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160822195001/http://www.fresnostate.edu/folklore/ballads/EM122.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Kipling often is quoted in discussions of contemporary British political and social issues. In 1911 Kipling wrote the poem "The Reeds of Runnymede" that celebrated [[Magna Carta]], and summoned up a vision of the "stubborn Englishry" determined to defend their rights. In 1996 the following verses of the poem were quoted by the former prime minister [[Margaret Thatcher]] warning against the encroachment of the [[European Union]] on national sovereignty:

<blockquote><poem>At Runnymede, at Runnymede,
Oh, hear the reeds at Runnymede:
"You musn't sell, delay, deny,
A freeman's right or liberty.
It wakes the stubborn Englishry,
We saw 'em roused at Runnymede!"

... And still when Mob or Monarch lays
Too rude a hand on English ways,
The whisper wakes, the shudder plays,
Across the reeds at Runnymede.
And Thames, that knows the mood of kings,
And crowds and priests and suchlike things,
Rolls deep and dreadful as he brings
Their warning down from Runnymede!<ref>[https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108353 "Keith Joseph Memorial Lecture ("Liberty and Limited Government")"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170329122851/http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=108353 |date=29 March 2017 }}. Margaret Thatcher.org. 1996 Jan 11.</ref>
</poem></blockquote>

The political singer-songwriter [[Billy Bragg]], who attempts to build a left-wing [[English nationalism]] in contrast with the more common right-wing English nationalism, has attempted to 'reclaim' Kipling for an inclusive sense of Englishness.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00xppmt|title=Rhyme and Reason|author=Billy Bragg|work=BBC Radio 4|access-date=25 January 2011|archive-date=22 January 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110122073316/http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00xppmt|url-status=live}}</ref> Kipling's enduring relevance has been noted in the United States, as it has become involved in [[Afghanistan]] and other areas about which he wrote.<ref>[http://thecitizen.co.tz/editorial-analysis/-/6762-world-view-is-afghanistan-turning-into-another-vietnam World View: Is Afghanistan turning into another Vietnam?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121114033719/http://thecitizen.co.tz/editorial-analysis/-/6762-world-view-is-afghanistan-turning-into-another-vietnam |date=14 November 2012 }}, Johnathan Power, ''The Citizen'', 31 December 2010</ref><ref>[http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/12/is-america-waxing-or-waning.html Is America waxing or waning?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110104232520/http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/12/is-america-waxing-or-waning.html |date=4 January 2011 }}, Andrew Sullivan, ''The Atlantic'', 12 December 2010</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://911poet.blogspot.com/ |title=Rudyard Kipling, official poet of the 911 War |author=Dufour, Steve |work=911poet.blogspot.com |access-date=31 December 2010 |archive-date=8 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110708021606/http://911poet.blogspot.com/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Camp Mowglis and Wolf Cubs===
In 1903 Kipling gave permission to Elizabeth Ford Holt to borrow themes from the ''Jungle Books'' to establish [[Camp Mowglis]], a summer camp for boys on the shores of [[Newfound Lake]] in [[New Hampshire]], US. Throughout their lives, Kipling and his wife Carrie maintained an active interest in Camp Mowglis, which still continues the traditions that Kipling inspired. Buildings at Mowglis have names such as [[Akela (The Jungle Book)|Akela]], [[Toomai of the Elephants|Toomai]], [[Baloo]] and Panther. The campers are referred to as "the Pack", from the youngest "Cubs" to the oldest living in "Den".<ref>{{cite web |title=History of Mowglis |url=http://www.mowglis.org/about/history/ |access-date=26 November 2013 |archive-date=3 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203014246/http://www.mowglis.org/about/history/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Kipling's writings were very similarly used as the basis of the 1916  [[Wolf Cubs]] programmes of [[Robert Baden-Powell]] and his [[The Scout Association|Boy Scouts Association]]. Wolf Cubs use themes from ''Jungle Book'' stories and ''Kim'' and play "[[Kim's Game]]". The Wolf Cubs were named after [[Mowgli]]'s adopted wolf family, and adult helpers of Wolf Cub (now Cub) Packs take names from ''The Jungle Book'', especially the adult leader called ''[[Akela (The Jungle Book)|Akela]]'' after the leader of the Seeonee wolf pack.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.scoutbase.org.uk/library/history/cubs/index.htm#Jungle |title=ScoutBase UK: The Library – Scouting history – Me Too! – The history of Cubbing in the United Kingdom 1916–present |publisher=Scoutbase.org.uk |access-date=10 September 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051125044919/http://www.scoutbase.org.uk/library/history/cubs/index.htm#Jungle|archive-date=25 November 2005 }}</ref>

===Kipling's Burwash home===
[[File:Bateman's.jpg|thumb|[[Bateman's]], Kipling's beloved home – which he referred to as "A good and peaceable place" – in [[Burwash, East Sussex|Burwash]], East Sussex, is now a public museum dedicated to him.<ref name="nationaltrust.org.uk">{{cite web |url=https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/batemans/features/history-at-batemans |title=History at Bateman's |website=National Trust |date=22 February 2019 |access-date=22 February 2019 |archive-date=23 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190223131516/https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/batemans/features/history-at-batemans |url-status=live }}</ref>]]

After the death of Kipling's wife in 1939 his house, [[Bateman's]] in [[Burwash, East Sussex]], where he had lived from 1902 until 1936, was bequeathed to the [[National Trust]]. It is now a public museum dedicated to him. [[Elsie Bambridge]], his only child who lived to maturity, died childless in 1976, and bequeathed her copyrights to the National Trust, which in turn donated them to the [[University of Sussex]] to ensure better public access.<ref>Howard, Philip (19 September 1977) "University library to have Kipling papers". ''The Times'', p. 1.</ref>

The novelist and poet Sir [[Kingsley Amis]] wrote a poem, "Kipling at Bateman's", after visiting Burwash (where Amis's father lived briefly in the 1960s) as part of a BBC television series on writers and their houses.<ref>leader, Zachary (2007). ''The Life of Kingsley Amis''. Vintage. pp. 704–705. {{ISBN|0375424989}}.</ref>

In 2003 the actor [[Ralph Fiennes]] read excerpts from Kipling's works from the study in Bateman's, including ''The Jungle Book'', ''Something of Myself'', ''Kim'', and ''The Just So Stories'', and poems, including [[If-|"If ..."]] and "My Boy Jack", for a CD published by the National Trust.<ref>[http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/9041659.Personal_touch_brings_Kipling_s_Sussex_home_to_life/?ref=rss "Personal touch brings Kipling's Sussex home to life"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130130055756/http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/9041659.Personal_touch_brings_Kipling_s_Sussex_home_to_life/?ref=rss |date=30 January 2013 }}. ''The Argus'', 22 May 2011.</ref><ref>[http://www.allmusic.com/album/rudyard-kipling-readings-by-ralph-fiennes-mw0000021657 "Rudyard Kipling Readings by Ralph Fiennes"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150427203934/http://www.allmusic.com/album/rudyard-kipling-readings-by-ralph-fiennes-mw0000021657 |date=27 April 2015 }}. Allmusic.</ref>

===Reputation in India===
In modern-day India, whence he drew much of his material, Kipling's reputation remains controversial, especially among modern nationalists and some post-colonial critics. It has long been alleged that Rudyard Kipling was a prominent supporter of Colonel [[Reginald Dyer]], who was responsible for the [[Jallianwala Bagh massacre]] in [[Amritsar]] (in [[Punjab (British India)|Punjab]]), and that Kipling called Dyer "the man who saved India" and initiated collections for the latter's homecoming prize.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.telegraphindia.com/1130221/jsp/frontpage/story_16587696.jsp |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130225191140/http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130221/jsp/frontpage/story_16587696.jsp |url-status=dead |archive-date=25 February 2013 |title=History repeats itself, in stopping short |website=telegraphindia.com}}</ref> Kim Wagner, senior lecturer in British Imperial History at [[Queen Mary University of London]], says that while Kipling did make a  £10 donation, he never made that remark.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/punjab/rudyard-kipling-gave-10-for-dyer-fund-756595|title=Rudyard Kipling gave £10 for Dyer fund|website=tribuneindia.com|access-date=22 October 2021|archive-date=22 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211022042522/https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/punjab/rudyard-kipling-gave-10-for-dyer-fund-756595|url-status=live}}</ref> Similarly, author Derek Sayer states that Dyer was "widely lauded as the saviour of Punjab", that Kipling had no part in organising ''The Morning Post'' fund, and that Kipling only sent £10, making the laconic observation: "He did his duty, as he saw it."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sayer |first1=Derek |date=1 May 1991 |title=British Reaction to the Amritsar Massacre 1919–1920 |journal=Past & Present |issue=131 |pages=130–164 |doi=10.1093/past/131.1.130}}</ref>  Subhash Chopra also writes in his book ''Kipling Sahib – the Raj Patriot'' that the benefit fund was started by ''The Morning Post'' newspaper, not by Kipling.<ref>{{cite book |title=Kipling Sahib: the Raj patriot |author=Subhash Chopra |publisher=New Millennium |year=2016 |location=London |isbn=978-1858454405}}</ref> ''[[The Economic Times]]'' attributes the phrase "The Man Who Saved India" along with the Dyer benefit fund to ''The Morning Post'' as well.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/jallianwala-bagh-massacre-when-a-british-newspaper-collected-rs-26000-pounds-for-general-dyer/articleshow/68866316.cms?from=mdr|title=Jallianwala Bagh massacre: When a British newspaper collected 26,000 pounds for General Dyer|newspaper=The Economic Times|date=13 April 2019|access-date=22 October 2021|archive-date=11 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211011105310/https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/jallianwala-bagh-massacre-when-a-british-newspaper-collected-rs-26000-pounds-for-general-dyer/articleshow/68866316.cms?from=mdr|url-status=live}}</ref>

Many contemporary Indian intellectuals, such as [[Ashis Nandy]], have a nuanced view of Kipling's legacy. [[Jawaharlal Nehru]], the first prime minister of independent India, often described Kipling's novel ''[[Kim (novel)|Kim]]'' as one of his favourite books.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AtESAq0zPZAC&pg=PA137 |title=Globalization and educational rights: an intercivilizational analysis|first=Joel H. |last=Spring|date=2001|publisher=Taylor & Francis|page= 137|isbn=9781410606020 }}</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=r6hlAAAAMAAJ Post independence voices in South Asian writings], Malashri Lal, [[Alamgīr Hashmī]], Victor J. Ramraj, 2001.</ref>

[[G. V. Desani]], an Indian writer of fiction, had a more negative opinion of Kipling. He alludes to Kipling in his novel ''[[All About H. Hatterr]]'':

{{Blockquote|I happen to pick up R. Kipling's autobiographical ''Kim''.

Therein, this self-appointed whiteman's burden-bearing sherpa feller's stated how, in the Orient, blokes hit the road and think nothing of walking a thousand miles in search of something.}}

The Indian writer [[Khushwant Singh]] wrote in 2001 that he considers Kipling's "[[If—]]" "the essence of the message of the ''Gita'' in English",<ref>[[Khushwant Singh]], [http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?211656 "Review of ''The Book of Prayer'' by Renuka Narayanan"]; {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131213061351/http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?211656|date=13 December 2013}} , 2001; review and Gita reference cited in [https://indiacurrents.com/if-you-can-keep-your-head-when-all-about-you-are-losing-theirs/ "If – You Can Keep Your Head When All About You Are Losing Theirs"] by Mukund Acharya, ''[[indiacurrents.com]]'', 26 December 2023 (possibly sourced to Wikipedia).{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}</ref> referring to the ''[[Bhagavad Gita]]'', an ancient Indian scripture. The writer [[R. K. Narayan]] (1906–2001) said: "Kipling, the supposed expert writer on India, showed a better understanding of the mind of the animals in the jungle than of the men in an Indian home or the marketplace."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/when-malgudi-man-courted-controversy/article6492181.ece?homepage=true|title=When Malgudi man courted controversy|work=The Hindu|first=Nitya|last=Menon|date=11 October 2014|access-date=13 October 2014|archive-date=13 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141013000955/http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/when-malgudi-man-courted-controversy/article6492181.ece?homepage=true|url-status=live}}</ref> The politician and writer [[Shashi Tharoor]] commented "Kipling, that flatulent voice of Victorian imperialism, would wax eloquent on the noble duty to bring law to those without it".<ref>{{cite news|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/08/india-britain-empire-railways-myths-gifts|title='But what about the railways ...?' The myth of Britain's gifts to India|first=Shashi|last=Tharoor|date=8 March 2017|access-date=20 April 2020|archive-date=1 May 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200501202303/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/08/india-britain-empire-railways-myths-gifts|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Kipling bungalow in the campus of Sir J. J. School of Art, Mumbai.jpg|thumb|The Kipling Bungalow, located adjacent to the site of his birth and built after Kipling had been sent to England.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Goradia |first=Abha |date=31 January 2019 |title=Kipling Bungalow: Restoration on track, likely to open to public next year |url=https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/rudyard-kipling-bungalow-restoration-on-track-likely-to-open-next-year-5562042/ |access-date=17 April 2025 |website=The Indian Express |language=en}}</ref>]]

In November 2007 it was announced that Kipling's birth home within the campus of the Sir J. J. School of Art in Mumbai would be turned into a museum celebrating the author and his works.<ref>{{cite news |title=Kipling's India home to become museum |date=27 November 2007 |publisher=[[BBC News]] |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7095922.stm |access-date=9 August 2008 |first=Zubair |last=Ahmed |archive-date=7 January 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090107091311/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7095922.stm |url-status=live }}</ref> A plaque at the entrance of the Kipling Bungalow, located on campus, is engraved with the words: "Rudyard Kipling, son of Lockwood Kipling, first dean of Sir JJ School of Art, was born here on December 30, 1865."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Pal |first=Sanchari |date=18 January 2017 |title=Once Upon a Time: The Inside Story of Rudyard Kipling's Mumbai Connection and 'The Jungle Book' |url=https://thebetterindia.com/82538/rudyard-kipling-jungle-book-mumbai-shimla-seoni/ |access-date=17 April 2025 |website=The Better India |language=en-US}}</ref> A bust of Rudyard Kipling also exists there.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Barnagarwala |first=Tabassum |date=31 December 2016 |title=At Sir JJ School Of Art: Restoration to bring back to life bungalow where Kipling was born |url=https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/at-sir-jj-school-of-art-restoration-to-bring-back-to-life-bungalow-where-kipling-was-born-4452621/ |access-date=17 April 2025 |website=The Indian Express |language=en}}</ref>

==Art==
Although he was best known as an author, Kipling was also an accomplished artist. Influenced by [[Aubrey Beardsley]], Kipling produced many illustrations for his stories, for example a 1926 edition of his ''Just So Stories''.<ref>[http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/kipling/index.html "Illustrations by Rudyard Kipling"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200914221520/http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/kipling/index.html |date=14 September 2020 }}. Victorian Web. Retrieved 1 October 2020</ref>

==Screen portrayals==
* [[Reginald Sheffield]] portrayed Kipling in ''[[Gunga Din (film)|Gunga Din]]'' (1939)
* [[Paul Scardon]] portrayed Kipling in ''[[The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944 film)|The Adventures of Mark Twain]]'' (1944)
* [[David Watson (actor)|David Watson]] portrayed Kipling in ''[[The Time Tunnel]]'' episode "Night of the Long Knives" (1966)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.scifi-movies.com/en/season/0000206/1/the-time-tunnel-1966/|title=The Time Tunnel - Irwin Allen (1966) - Episode guide from season 1|access-date=21 March 2022|archive-date=21 March 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220321094234/https://www.scifi-movies.com/en/season/0000206/1/the-time-tunnel-1966/|url-status=live}}</ref>
* [[Christopher Plummer]] portrayed Kipling in ''[[The Man Who Would Be King (film)|The Man Who Would Be King]]'' (1975)
* [[David Haig]] portrayed Kipling in ''[[My Boy Jack (film)|My Boy Jack]]'' (2007)
* [[Seán Cullen]] portrayed Kipling in the season 16 episode "The Write Stuff" of ''[[Murdoch Mysteries]]'' (2023)<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.heraldextra.com/entertainment/movies-tv/2023/feb/08/brokaw-murdoch-mysteries-returns-for-season-16/ |title= Brokaw: 'Murdoch Mysteries' returns for season 16 |last=Brokaw |first=Francine |date=3 February 2023 |website=[[Daily Herald (Utah)|Daily Herald]] |publisher= |access-date=25 May 2024}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date= |title=Murdoch Mysteries, Season 16: The Write Stuff |url=https://acorn.tv/murdoch/season16/the-write-stuff/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240421102212/https://acorn.tv/murdoch/season16/the-write-stuff/ |archive-date=21 April 2024 |publisher=[[Acorn TV]] |access-date=27 February 2025}}</ref>

==Bibliography==
{{Main|Rudyard Kipling bibliography}}

Kipling's bibliography includes fiction (including novels and short stories), non-fiction and poetry. Several of his works were collaborations.

==See also==
{{Portal|Poetry|Biography}}
* {{HMS|Birkenhead|1845}}—Ship mentioned in one of Kipling's poems
* [[Kipling Trail]]
* [[List of Nobel laureates in Literature]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Cited sources==
* {{cite book | author=Eliot, T. S. |author-link=T. S. Eliot |year=1941 |title=A Choice of Kipling's Verse, Made by T. S. Eliot with an Essay on Rudyard Kipling |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.503906/page/n5/mode/2up |location=London |publisher=Faber and Faber |oclc=1338703261 |ref=Eliot}}
* {{cite book |author=Gilmour, David |year=2003 |title=The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pPhD2yKzvhYC&pg=PA32 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=978-1466830004 |ref=Gilmour}}
* {{cite journal |author=Hodgson, Katherine |date=October 1998 |title=The Poetry of Rudyard Kipling in Soviet Russia |jstor=3736277| pages=1058–1071 |journal=The Modern Language Review |volume=93 |issue=4 |doi=10.2307/3736277 |ref=Hodgson}}
* {{cite journal |author=Scott, David |date=June 2011 |title=Kipling, the Orient, and Orientals: 'Orientalism' Reoriented? |journal=Journal of World History |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=299–328 [315] |doi=10.1353/jwh.2011.0036 |jstor=23011713 |s2cid=143705079 |ref=Scott}}

==Further reading==
{{Library resources box}}
; Biography and criticism
* [[Charles Allen (writer)|Allen, Charles]] (2007). ''Kipling Sahib: India and the Making of Rudyard Kipling'', Abacus. {{ISBN|978-0-349-11685-3}}.
* Bauer, Helen Pike (1994). ''Rudyard Kipling: A Study of the Short Fiction''. New York: Twayne
* [[Frederick Smith, 2nd Earl of Birkenhead|Birkenhead, Lord]] (1978). ''Rudyard Kipling''. Worthing: Littlehampton Book Services Ltd. {{ISBN|978-0-297-77535-5}}.
* {{cite book |last=Carrington |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Carrington (British Army officer) |title=Rudyard Kipling: His Life and Work |year=1955 |publisher=Macmillan & Co. |location=London}}
* [[Rupert Croft-Cooke|Croft-Cooke, Rupert]] (1948). ''Rudyard Kipling''. The English Novelists series. London: Home & Van Thal Ltd.
* David, C. (2007). ''Rudyard Kipling: a critical study'', New Delhi: Anmol. {{ISBN|81-261-3101-2}}.
* Dillingham, William B (2005). ''Rudyard Kipling: Hell and Heroism''. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. {{ISBN|9781403969972}}.
* Gilbert, Elliot L. ed. (1965). ''Kipling and the Critics'' (New York: New York University Press).
* [[David Gilmour (historian)|Gilmour, David]] (2003). ''[[The Long Recessional|The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling]]'' New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. {{ISBN|0-374-52896-9}}.
* [[Roger Lancelyn Green|Green, Roger Lancelyn]], ed. (1971). ''Kipling: the Critical Heritage''. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
* Gross, John, ed. (1972). ''Rudyard Kipling: the Man, his Work and his World''. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
* [[Syed Sajjad Hussain|Hussain, Syed Sajjad]] (1964). ''Kipling and India: An Inquiry into the Nature and Extent of Kipling's Knowledge of the Indian Sub-Continent''. Dacca: Dacca University Press .
* [[Sandra Kemp|Kemp, Sandra]] (1988). ''Kipling's Hidden Narratives''. Oxford: Blackwell.
* [[Andrew Lycett|Lycett, Andrew]] (1999). ''Rudyard Kipling''. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. {{ISBN|0-297-81907-0}}.
* Lycett, Andrew (ed.) (2010). ''Kipling Abroad'', I. B. Tauris. {{ISBN|978-1-84885-072-9}}.
* Mallett, Phillip (2003). ''Rudyard Kipling: A Literary Life''. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
* Montefiore, Jan (ed.) (2013). ''In Time's Eye: Essays on Rudyard Kipling''. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
* Narita, Tatsushi (2011). ''T. S. Eliot and his Youth as 'A Literary Columbus'''. Nagoya: Kougaku Shuppan.
* [[Adam Nicolson|Nicolson, Adam]] (2001). ''Carrie Kipling 1862–1939 : The Hated Wife''. Faber & Faber, London. {{ISBN|0-571-20835-5}}.
* [[Harry Ricketts|Ricketts, Harry]] (2001). ''Rudyard Kipling: A Life''. New York: Da Capo Press {{ISBN|0-7867-0830-1}}.
* Rooney, Caroline, and Kaori Nagai, eds. (2011). ''Kipling and Beyond: Patriotism, Globalisation, and Postcolonialism''. Palgrave Macmillan; 214 pp. Scholarly essays on Kipling's "boy heroes of empire", Kipling and C.L.R. James, and Kipling and the new American empire, etc.
* [[Andrew Rutherford (English scholar)|Rutherford, Andrew]], ed. (1964). ''Kipling's Mind and Art''. Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd.
* Sergeant, David (2013). ''Kipling's Art of Fiction 1884–1901''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* [[Martin Seymour-Smith|Seymour-Smith, Martin]] (1989). ''Rudyard Kipling''. New York: St. Martin's Press. {{ISBN|9780312039257}}. {{OCLC|243442302}}
* [[Tom Shippey|Shippey, Tom]], "Rudyard Kipling", in: ''Cahier Calin: Makers of the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of William Calin'', ed. [[Richard Utz]] and Elizabeth Emery (Kalamazoo, MI: Studies in Medievalism, 2011), pp.&nbsp;21–23.
* [[J. M. S. Tompkins|Tompkins, J. M. S.]] (1959). ''The Art of Rudyard Kipling''. London: Methuen. [https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=6061068 OOnline edition] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120615184125/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=6061068 |date=15 June 2012 }}.
* Walsh, Sue (2010). ''Kipling's Children's Literature: Language, Identity, and Constructions of Childhood''. Farnham: Ashgate.
* [[Angus Wilson|Wilson, Angus]] (1978). ''The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling: His Life and Works''. New York: The Viking Press. {{ISBN|0-670-67701-9}}.

==External links==
{{Sister project links| wikt=no | commons=Rudyard Kipling | b=no | n=no | q=Rudyard Kipling | s=Author:Rudyard Kipling | v=no | voy=no | species=no | d=q34743}} 
* [http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/ The Kipling Society website]
* {{Nobelprize}}
* [http://sf-encyclopedia.uk/fe.php?nm=kipling_rudyard Rudyard Kipling] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200621191923/http://sf-encyclopedia.uk/fe.php?nm=kipling_rudyard |date=21 June 2020 }} at the [[The Encyclopedia of Fantasy|Encyclopedia of Fantasy]]
* [http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/kipling_rudyard Rudyard Kipling] at the [[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction|Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]]
* [https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/102514 Rudyard Kipling recordings] at the [[Discography of American Historical Recordings]].

; Works
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/rudyard-kipling}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=132 | name=Rudyard Kipling}}
*[https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/rudyard-kipling-books.html Rudyard Kipling] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250115102551/https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/rudyard-kipling-books.html |date=15 January 2025 }} at Global Grey Ebooks
*[http://noblib.internet-box.ch/NLEW.php?authorid=8 List of works at the Works Catalogues of Laureates of the Nobel Prize for Literature]
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Rudyard Kipling}}
* {{Librivox author |id=144}}
*[https://wikilivres.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling Works by Rudyard Kipling]{{dead link|date=January 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} (not public domain in US, so not available on Wikisource)

<!-- Note that since Kipling's writing is mostly in the public domain, a large number of individual websites contain parts of his work; these sites are comprehensive, containing almost everything publicly available. -->
; Resources
*[https://www.thekeep.info/collections/keep-partners/university-of-sussex-special-collections/kipling-papers-wimpole-archive-sxms-38/ Rudyard Kipling Papers and other Kipling related collections] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211122074820/https://www.thekeep.info/collections/keep-partners/university-of-sussex-special-collections/kipling-papers-wimpole-archive-sxms-38/ |date=22 November 2021 }} at [[The Keep, Brighton|The Keep]], [[University of Sussex]]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20090309171106/http://www.marlboro.edu/resources/library/collections/kipling/ The Rudyard Kipling Collection] maintained by Marlboro College.
*[https://www.poemist.com/rudyard-kipling/poems The Rudyard Kipling Poems] by Poemist.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110925191249/http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/kipling.html Rudyard Kipling: The Books I Leave Behind] exhibition, related podcast, and digital images maintained by the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University
* {{ISFDB name|id=Rudyard_Kipling|name=Rudyard Kipling}}
*[https://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/134.html The Rudyard Kipling Collections] From the [https://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/ Rare Book and Special Collections Division] at the [[Library of Congress]]
* Archival material at [https://library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/8697 Leeds University Library]
* {{PM20|FID=pe/009606}}
* [[hdl:10079/fa/beinecke.kiplingwatt|A. P. Watt & Son records relating to Rudyard Kipling]]. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

{{Rudyard Kipling}}
{{The Jungle Book}}
{{The Light that Failed}}
{{Rectors of the University of St Andrews}}
{{Nobel Prize in Literature}}
{{1907 Nobel Prize winners}}
{{Nobel Laureates in English Literature}}
{{Victorian children's literature}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kipling, Rudyard}}
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[[Category:English Nobel laureates]]
[[Category:English people of Scottish descent]]
[[Category:English science fiction writers]]
[[Category:English-language Indian poets]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature]]
[[Category:Freemasons of the United Grand Lodge of England]]
[[Category:Journalists from British India]]
[[Category:Maritime writers]]
[[Category:Mythopoeic writers]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Literature]]
[[Category:Novelists from British India]]
[[Category:People educated at United Services College]]
[[Category:People from Burwash]]
[[Category:People of the Second Boer War]]
[[Category:People of the Victorian era]]
[[Category:Rectors of the University of St Andrews]]
[[Category:Short story writers from British India]]
[[Category:Sports poets]]
[[Category:Victorian novelists]]
[[Category:Writers from Lahore]]
[[Category:Writers from Mumbai]]
[[Category:Writers who illustrated their own writing]]