Rudyard Kipling: Life, Works, and Literary Legacy

Early Life and Colonial Childhood in India

Born in Bombay, India, on December 30, 1865, Joseph Rudyard Kipling was one of the most influential British poets and novelists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was the only son of John Lockwood Kipling, a well-known pottery designer and collector of native Indian art. His mother, Alice Macdonald Kipling, was the daughter of a Wesleyan minister. Her sisters — Lady Burne-Jones, Lady Poynter, and Mrs. Alfred Baldwin — had extensive social connections with English royalty. Mrs. Baldwin's son Stanley later became Prime Minister of England and was named Lord Baldwin.

Kipling's childhood was profoundly shaped by his birth in India. He was raised in the care of native ayahs (nurses or maids typically employed by well-to-do British households) who taught him to speak Hindustani, the official language of India, alongside English, his mother tongue. In this environment, young Kipling became deeply enamored with Indian culture and its literature, an immersion that would greatly influence his later career as a poet, short story writer, and novelist.

When Kipling was six years old, he was sent to England to live under the guardianship of an elderly relative at Southsea. There he experienced what has come to be called "culture shock," for his new life in England was radically different from what he had known in India. To make matters worse, his guardian did not appreciate Kipling's precocious personality and treated him rather harshly.

Education and the Start of a Literary Career

In 1878, at the age of twelve, Kipling was sent to school for the first time at the United Services College in North Devon, a public institution made up mostly of students of Anglo-Indian descent. Since he could speak Hindustani fluently, he quickly gained the respect and comradeship of his fellow students and became very popular. Academically, Kipling did not excel at first, but he soon became interested in literature, began editing the school magazine, and tried his hand at poetry — with considerable success, as some of his earliest poems were published in a local newspaper.

In 1883, at the age of eighteen, Kipling was offered the opportunity to attend university but declined and returned to India. Fortunately, his father had by then risen in Indian society by taking on the role of director of the prestigious Lahore Museum, and through this position he arranged for his son to join the staff of the Civil and Military Gazette. There Kipling learned the craft of journalism — a job he discovered involved far more than writing, requiring hard work and personal sacrifice.

At the Gazette, Kipling began writing short stories and publishing them in the paper. It was here that he created some of his most memorable literary characters, including Ortheris, Mulvaney, and Learoyd, who were later incorporated into his novel Plain Tales from the Hills (1888). The chief editor was evidently struck by Kipling's literary abilities and boundless energy. During this same period, Kipling began his lifelong exploration of Indian culture — an exploration that would serve him well in later years when his skills as a novelist reached their peak.

Between 1887 and 1889, Kipling also served as writer and editor for the Allahabad Pioneer, where he furthered his literary and journalistic ambitions by working on novels and short stories he hoped would establish his reputation in London. Previously, in 1886, he had published a collection of poetry that appeared in book form and in the Civil and Military Gazette. This volume is now a highly sought-after collectible that has fetched very high prices at rare book auctions around the world.

Following the success of that poetry collection, Kipling produced Soldiers Three, Under the Deodars, and several other important works focused on Anglo-Indian civil and military life in Allahabad. In 1889, he was chosen by the Allahabad Gazette to return to England via excursions through other countries; from that experience he produced Letters of Marque and From Sea to Sea.

Upon his return to London, Kipling took up residence on Villiers Street near the River Thames, then considered the newspaper center of the city. Determined to become a respected author and poet, he frequently visited the offices of important London newspapers and haunted local bookshops in search of material and inspiration. During this time, he met Caroline Starr Balestier, the sister of American author Charles Wolcott Balestier. In 1892, after returning from a voyage to South Africa that resulted in the publication of The Light That Failed (1891), Kipling married her. That same year, his celebrated collection of poetry Barrack-Room Ballads was published.

Literary Style and Narrative Techniques

All of Kipling's short stories and novels embody a highly distinctive voice. This voice was often provided by an unknown narrator and — whether assertive or teasing in tone — it was always immediately recognizable and commanded the reader's attention. The application of a knowing narrative voice, similar to the "fly on the wall" method, was not entirely new, but Kipling made it his own. It is evident that he drew on and sometimes imitated the voices of other authors; George Gordon, Lord Byron, for instance, was an influence detectable in some of his earliest poems.

Another important literary device Kipling employed was the framing of the central narrative — a technique that became an essential ingredient in his later fiction. As an experimental form, this framing was often accompanied by literary ventriloquism: the main voice belongs to an anonymous narrator who is frequently ironic and elusive, while other, sharply differentiated voices are projected through characters.

Kipling gradually extended his range of literary ventriloquism by inserting elaborate, ornate English as spoken by upright British gentlemen, thereby conveying the richness and texture of the language. In a number of short stories featuring Anglo-Indian children, he imaginatively rendered the phonetic sounds of the children's speech. With the character of Mulvaney, he inserted an authentic Irish brogue — an impressive literary achievement in its own right.

Another technique evident in Kipling's tales from roughly 1888 onward was the deliberate concealment of his own authorial presence. This was accomplished by giving the reader no indication that the writer himself was behind the words — a demanding trick that required considerable psychological subtlety on Kipling's part.