Rudyard kipling family biography summary

Alongside his passionate 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 had taken by the autumn of , he blamed the entire pre-war generation of British politicians who, Kipling argued, had failed to learn the lessons of the Boer War.

Thus thousands of British soldiers were now paying with their lives for their failure in the fields of France and Belgium. Kipling had scorn for men who shirked duty in the First World War. 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? In , Kipling was one of 53 leading British authors — a number that included H.

Kipling's only son John was killed in action at the Battle of Loos in September , at age John initially wanted to join the Royal Navy, but having had his application turned down after a failed medical examination due to poor eyesight, he opted to apply for military service as an army officer. Again, his eyesight was an issue during the medical examination.

In fact, he tried twice to enlist, but was rejected. His father had been lifelong friends with 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. 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 , although that identification has been challenged. Cemetery, Haisnes. 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 ".

However, Kipling was indeed 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. Some of these were set to music by the English composer Edward Elgar. 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. 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.

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 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 " Ecclesiasticus Additionally, he wrote a two-volume history of the Irish Guards , his son's regiment, published in and seen as one of the finest examples of regimental history. Kipling's short story "The Gardener" depicts visits to the war cemeteries, and the poem " The King's Pilgrimage " a journey which King George V made, touring the cemeteries and memorials under construction by the 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.

Kipling was hostile towards communism , writing of the Bolshevik take-over in that one sixth of the world had "passed bodily out of civilization". 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.

In , Kipling, having referred to the work of engineers in some of his poems, such as "The Sons of Martha", "Sappers", and " McAndrew's Hymn ", [ ] and in other writings, including short-story anthologies such as The Day's Work , [ ] was asked by a University of Toronto civil engineering professor, Herbert E. 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 at a ceremony to remind them of their obligation to society. Kipling, as a Francophile , argued strongly for an Anglo-French alliance to uphold the peace, calling Britain and France in the "twin fortresses of European civilization".

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. He believed that Labour was a communist front organisation, and "excited orders and instructions from Moscow" would expose Labour as such to the British people. Though he admired Benito Mussolini to some extent in the s, he was against fascism, calling Oswald Mosley "a bounder and an arriviste ".

By , he was calling Mussolini a deranged and dangerous egomaniac and in wrote, "The Hitlerites are out for blood". 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. 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". In a note to Edward Bok after the death of Lockwood Kipling in , 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. Kipling kept writing until the early s, but at a slower pace and with less success than before. On the night of 12 January , 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 , at the age of 70, of a perforated duodenal ulcer.

His death had previously been 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. The pallbearers at the funeral included Kipling's cousin, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin , and the marble casket was covered by a Union Jack. In , Kipling's Just So Stories featured on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail to mark the centenary of the publication of the book.

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.

His children's stories remain popular and his Jungle Books made into several films. The first was made by 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 The poet T. Eliot edited A Choice of Kipling's Verse with an introductory essay.

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.

Of Kipling's verse, such as his Barrack-Room Ballads , Eliot writes "of a number of poets who have written great poetry, only And unless I am mistaken, Kipling's position in this class is not only high, but unique. In response to Eliot, George Orwell wrote a long consideration of Kipling's work for Horizon in , 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 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? 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.

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. In , the poet W. Auden celebrated Kipling in a similarly ambiguous way in his elegy for William Butler Yeats.

Auden deleted this section from more recent editions of his poems. 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.

The poet Alison Brackenbury writes "Kipling is poetry's Dickens, an outsider and journalist with an unrivalled ear for sound and speech. 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.

Kipling often is quoted in discussions of contemporary British political and social issues. In , 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 , the following verses of the poem were quoted by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher warning against the encroachment of the European Union on national sovereignty:.

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!

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. Throughout their lives, Kipling and his wife Carrie maintained an active interest in Camp Mowglis, which still continues the traditions that Kipling inspired.

The campers are referred to as "the Pack", from the youngest "Cubs" to the oldest living in "Den". Kipling's links with the Scouting movements were also strong. These ties still exist, such as the popularity of " Kim's Game ". The movement is named after Mowgli 's adopted wolf family, and adult helpers of Wolf Cub now Cub Scout Packs take names from The Jungle Book , especially the adult leader called Akela after the leader of the Seeonee wolf pack.

After the death of Kipling's wife in , his house, Bateman's in Burwash, East Sussex , where he had lived from until , was bequeathed to the National Trust. It is now a public museum dedicated to the author. Elsie Bambridge , his only child who lived to maturity, died childless in , and bequeathed her copyrights to the National Trust, which in turn donated them to the University of Sussex to ensure better public access.

Novelist and poet Sir Kingsley Amis wrote a poem, "Kipling at Bateman's", after visiting Burwash where Amis's father lived briefly in the s as part of a BBC television series on writers and their houses. 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 the province of Punjab , and that Kipling called Dyer "the man who saved India" and initiated collections for the latter's homecoming prize. 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 as one of his favourite books. Desani , an Indian writer of fiction, had a more negative opinion of Kipling. He alludes to Kipling in his novel All About H. Hatterr :. 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.

Indian writer Khushwant Singh wrote in that he considers Kipling's " If— " "the essence of the message of The Gita in English", [ ] referring to the Bhagavad Gita , an ancient Indian scripture. Indian writer R. Narayan — 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.

In November , it was announced that Kipling's birth home in the campus of the J. School of Art in Mumbai would be turned into a museum celebrating the author and his works. Though 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 edition of his Just So Stories.

Kipling's bibliography includes fiction including novels and short stories , non-fiction, and poetry. Several of his works were collaborations. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. English writer and poet — For other uses, see Kipling disambiguation.

Short story novel children's literature poetry travel literature science fiction. Caroline Starr Balestier. Childhood — [ edit ]. Education in Britain [ edit ]. Return to India [ edit ]. Early adult life — [ edit ]. Return to London [ edit ]. London [ edit ]. United States [ edit ]. Life in New England [ edit ]. Devon [ edit ]. Visits to South Africa [ edit ].

Sussex [ edit ]. Speculative fiction [ edit ]. Nobel laureate and beyond [ edit ]. See also: Nobel Prize in Literature. Freemasonry [ edit ]. First World War — [ edit ]. Death of John Kipling [ edit ]. After the war — [ edit ]. Death [ edit ]. Plaque at Fitzrovia Chapel , Westminster, commemorating Kipling's body resting there following his death.

Legacy [ edit ]. Eliot [ ]. Links with camping and scouting [ edit ]. Kipling's Burwash home [ edit ]. Reputation in India [ edit ]. Art [ edit ]. Screen portrayals [ edit ]. Bibliography [ edit ]. Main article: Rudyard Kipling bibliography. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. Notes on the text by John McGivering. Oxford University Press.

He also noted their "semi-fanatic ideas about religion, or about patriotism". Archived from the original on 25 September Retrieved 30 September Oxford University Press, pp. Culture and Imperialism. ISBN The Literary Dictionary Company. Rudyard Kipling: His Life and Work. Norton and Company, New York. Notes edited by John Radcliffe. Archived from the original on 26 May Retrieved 2 October BBC News.

Archived from the original on 7 January Retrieved 7 August 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.

Rudyard kipling family biography summary

In May , an inebriated Beatty encountered Kipling on the street and threatened him with physical harm. In July , a week before the hearing was to resume, the Kiplings packed their belongings, left the United States and returned to England. By September , the Kiplings were in Torquay, Devon, on the south-western coast of England, in a hillside home 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. 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, in August 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.

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! Judge of the Nations, spare us yet. Lest we forget — lest we forget! In early , the Kiplings travelled to South Africa for their winter holiday, so beginning an annual tradition which except the following year would last until Kipling cultivated their friendship and came to admire the men and their politics.

The period — was crucial in the history of South Africa and included the Second Boer War — , the ensuing peace treaty, and the 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 , became a correspondent for The Friend newspaper in Bloemfontein, which had been commandeered by Lord Roberts for British troops.

Gwynne, and others. He also wrote articles published more widely expressing his views on the conflict. It is a good and peaceable place. 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 collected as A Fleet in Being.

On a visit to the United States in , Kipling and his daughter Josephine developed pneumonia, from which she eventually died. 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.

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. 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. In , he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, having been nominated in that year by Charles Oman, professor at the University of Oxford.

Nobel prizes had been established in and Kipling was the first English-language recipient. 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.

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. In his view it was only British rule that allowed Ireland to advance. 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.

Asquith that would plunge Ireland into the Dark Ages and allow the Irish Catholic majority to oppress the Protestant minority. Ulster was first publicly read at an Unionist rally in Belfast, where the largest Union Jack ever made was unfolded. Kipling was a staunch opponent of Bolshevism, a position which he shared with his friend Henry Rider Haggard.

According to the English magazine Masonic Illustrated , Kipling became a Freemason in about , before the usual minimum age of 21, being initiated into Hope and Perseverance Lodge No. 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 was an Indian Jew. At the beginning of the First World War, like many other writers, Kipling wrote pamphlets and poems enthusiastically supporting the UK war aims of restoring Belgium, after it had been occupied by Germany, together with generalized statements that Britain was standing up for the cause of good. In September , Kipling was asked by the government to write propaganda, an offer that he accepted.

Kipling was enraged by reports of the Rape of Belgium together with the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in , which he saw as a deeply inhumane act, which led him to see the war as a crusade for civilization against barbarism. Alongside his passionate antipathy towards Germany, Kipling was privately deeply critical of how the war was being fought by the British Army, complaining as early as October that Germany should have been defeated by now, and something must be wrong with the British Army.

Kipling, who was shocked by the heavy losses that the British Expeditionary Force had taken by the autumn of , blamed the entire pre-war generation of British politicians who, he argued, had failed to learn the lessons of the Boer War. Thus thousands of British soldiers were now paying with their lives for their failure in the fields of France and Belgium.

Kipling had scorn for men who shirked duty in the First World War. 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?

In , Kipling was one of 53 leading British authors — a number that included H. John initially wanted to join the Royal Navy, but having had his application turned down after a failed medical examination due to poor eyesight, he opted to apply for military service as an army officer. Again, his eyesight was an issue during the medical examination.

In fact, he tried twice to enlist, but was rejected. 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 , although that identification has been challenged. Cemetery, Haisnes. However, Kipling was indeed emotionally devastated by the death of his son.

The two men grew close and even traveled together to the United States, where Balestier introduced his fellow writer to his childhood home of Brattleboro, Vermont. Around this time, Kipling's star power started to grow. In addition to Plain Tales From the Hills , Kipling published a second collection of short stories, Wee Willie Winkie , and American Notes , which chronicled his early impressions of America.

In , he also published the poetry work Barrack-Room Ballads. Kipling's friendship with Balestier changed the young writer's life. He soon got to know Balestier's family, in particular, his sister, Carrie. The two appeared to be just friends, but during the Christmas holiday in , Kipling, who had traveled back to India to see his family, received an urgent cable from Carrie.

Wolcott had died suddenly of typhoid fever and Carrie needed Kipling to be with her. Kipling rushed back to England, and within eight days of his return, the two married at a small ceremony attended by American writer Henry James. Following their wedding, the Kiplings set off on an adventurous honeymoon that took them to Canada and then Japan.

But as was often the case in Kipling's life, good fortune was accompanied by hard luck. During the Japanese leg of the journey, Kipling learned that his bank, the New Oriental Banking Corporation, had failed. The Kiplings were broke. Left only with what they had with them, the young couple decided to travel to Brattleboro, where much of Carrie's family still resided.

Kipling fell in love with life in the states, and the two decided to settle there. In the spring of , the Kiplings purchased from Carrie's brother Beatty a piece of land just north of Brattleboro and had a large home constructed, which they called the Naulahka. Kipling seemed to adore his new life, which soon saw the Kiplings welcome their first child, a daughter named Josephine born in , and a second daughter, Elsie born in A third child, John, was born in , after the Kiplings had left America.

As a writer, too, Kipling flourished. Kipling was delighted to be around children—a characteristic that was apparent in his writing. His tales enchanted girls and boys all over the English-speaking world. But life again took another dramatic turn for the family when Kipling had a major falling out with Beatty. The two men quarreled, and when Kipling made noise about taking his brother-in-law to court because of threats Beatty had made to his life, newspapers across America broadcast the spat on their front pages.

The gentle Kipling was embarrassed by the attention and regretful of how his celebrity had worked against him. As a result, in , he and his family left Vermont for a new life back in England. In the winter of , Carrie, who was homesick, decided that the family needed to travel back to New York to see her mother. But the journey across the Atlantic was brutal, and New York was frigid.

Both Kipling and young Josephine arrived in the states gravely ill with pneumonia. For days, the world kept careful watch on the state of Kipling's health as newspapers reported on his condition. Kipling did recover, but his beloved Josephine did not. The family waited until Kipling was strong enough to hear the news, but even then, Carrie could not bear to break it to him, asking his publisher, Frank Doubleday, to do so instead.

To those who knew him, it was clear that Kipling never recovered from Josephine's death. He vowed never to return to America. Over time, Kipling would become known for harboring a sense of English imperialism and views on certain cultures that would draw much objection and be seen as disturbingly racist. Yet even as Kipling grew more rigid in his viewpoints as he got older, aspects of his earlier work would still be celebrated.

The turn of the century saw the publication of another novel that would become quite popular, Kim , which featured a youth's adventure on the Grand Trunk Road. In , the Kiplings bought a large estate in Sussex known as Bateman's. The property had been erected in , and for the private Kiplings, it offered the kind of isolation they now cherished.