Plain Tales from the Hills (1888). by

Book excerpt: Plain Tales from the Hills (published 1888) is the first collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Out of its 40 stories, "eight-and-twenty," according to Kipling's Preface, were initially published in the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, Punjab, British India, between November 1886 and June 1887. "The remaining tales are, more or less, new." (Kipling had worked as a journalist for the CMG-his first job-since 1882, when he was not quite 17.) 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. Not all of the stories are, in fact, about life in "the Hills": Kipling gives sketches of many aspects of life in British India. The tales include the first appearances, in book form, of Mrs. Hauksbee, the policeman Strickland, and the Soldiers Three (Privates Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd). The stories[edit] "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" "By Word of Mouth" "To be Filed for Reference..". Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( 30 December 1865 - 18 January 1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888).His poems include "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If-" (1910). 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." Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry James said: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known." In 1907, at the age of 42, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and its youngest recipient to date.He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, both of which he declined. Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed according to the political and social climate of the age and the resulting contrasting views about him continued for much of the 20th century. George Orwell called him a "prophet of British imperialism." Literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote: "[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."