PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS - All 40 Tales in One Edition

Book excerpt: Plain Tales from the Hills is the Kipling's first collection of short stories, the tales about India and more noticeably about the British in India. The title refers, by way of a pun on "Plain" as the reverse of "Hills", to the deceptively simple narrative style; and to the fact that many of the stories are set in the Hill Station of Simla—the "summer capital of the British Raj" during the hot weather. The tales include the first appearances, in book form, of Mrs. Hauksbee, the policeman Strickland, and the Soldiers Three (Privates Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd). Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was an English short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He wrote tales and poems of British soldiers in India and stories for children. He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story; his children's books are classics of children's literature; and one critic described his work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift". Contents: Lispeth Three and—an Extra Thrown Away Miss Youghal's Sais 'Yoked with an Unbeliever' False Dawn The Rescue of Pluffles Cupid's Arrows The Three Musketeers His Chance in Life Watches of the Night The Other Man Consequences The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin The Taking of Lungtungpen A Germ-Destroyer Kidnapped The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly In the House of Suddhoo His Wedded Wife The Broken Link Handicap Beyond the Pale In Error A Bank Fraud Tods' Amendment The Daughter of the Regiment In the Pride of His Youth Pig The Rout of the White Hussars The Bronckhorst Divorce-Case Venus Annodomini The Bisara of Pooree A Friend's Friend The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows The Madness of Private Ortheris The Story of Muhammad Din On the Strength of a Likeness Wressley of the Foreign Office...