KIP'LING, (JosEPn ) RI:DYARD ( 1865— ). An English fiction-writer and poet. Ile was born in Bombay, December 30, 1805. the soil of John Lockwood Kipling, who was for many years con with the schools of art at and Lahore, in India. Ilis mother, Alice Macdonald, was the daughter of a Methodist clergyman at Endon, Staffordshire. At the age of five, Kipling was brought to England, and in 1878 he entered the United Service College, at ‘Vestward llo, Devonshire, editing while there the College Chronicle, for which he wrote verse and prose. On his school life lie drew freely for the incidents narrated in Stalky d- Co. (1899). Ileturning to India, be joined the editorial stair of the Lahore Civil and Military Oa:elle (1882-1887), and afterwards became assistant editor of the Pioneer at Allahabad (1887-1889). To these and other papers he contributed satirical verses and sketches of Anglo-Indian life. Xchoolboy Lyrics (1881) was followed by Echoes (188•), DC pa O lken( 01 Dili (1SS0) and Plain Talcs from the Mils (ISSS). The last two represent the best of his early work in verse and prose. In 1888 lie published. at Allahabad: Soldiers Three. The (laden's, In Black and While, Under the Deodars.
7'he 1011I RiekSha IV find Mher Tale's, and Wur Willie Winkle and Other Child Stories.
Having now become well known in India, Kip ling visited England and the United States in search of a publisher, but failed at first. Ills im pressions of America, originally contrilmted to the Pioneer, were afterwards published in New York, under the title interim'? Votes (1891). in Is90 Kipling, then in London. suddenly found himself famous. Since then his vogue has been extraordinary. In 1892 he married the daughter of IL Wolcott Balestier of New York City. and settled in Vermont. where he remained till 1896. To this second' period of his life belong Life's Handicap: The Light That Paired (1891); Bar rack-Boom Ballads (1892) ; The :Vat: Mika. writ ten in collaboration with Wolcott Balestier, Kip ng's brother-in-law ; tinny Mr( I inns 1!•193) : the two Jungle Books (1894-1895) ; 7'he Ne (DM): and Captains Courageous (1S97 1. Kipling was again in the United States in 1899, when he suffered from a severe illness. In the same year he visited the scene of war in South Africa. His two poems entitled The Recessional (1897), written on the occasion of Queen Vic toria's Junilee, and The White .ilan's Burden (1899) were widely read. Among his latest publications are, besides Stalky tE Co. cited above, The Day's Work (1898) ; Kim (1901), a story of life in, India; and The Just-So Stories, a book for children (1902).
Rudyard Kipling possesses undoubtedly a more original genius than any other English writer living at the beginning of the twentieth century.
He represents unerringly the spirit of his age and of the Anglo-Saxon race. Vigor, audacity, and efficiency are the virtues that most appeal to him; and they characterize his own thought and his literary style to a remarkable degree. A genuine master of language, he ranges, according to his theme, from the brutal speech of the bar racks and the vivid slang of the smoking-room to a noble diction, which at times half recalls the majestic cadences of the Hebrew prophets. He has an almost inspired instinct for the essential thing, for that which stands out as typical of the whole, and be can flash it upon the mind of his readers in such startling felicity of phrasing as to make it forever merhorable.
In his prose he is at his best in telling of India, whether it be the India of the Anglo Indian or the mysterious India of the native; he has, in fact, done for India what Sir Walter Scott did for the Scottish Highlands; and. like Scott, be has peopled his country with scores of men and women who are never likely to be for gotten. His Soldiers Three are as sure of im mortality as the Three Musketeers of Dumas, with whom they have often been compared; and his Gadsbys. Hankshees. and Strieklands are little if at all inferior. Such stories as "The Man Who Would he King." "The Drums of the Fore and Aft." and "Without Benefit of Clergy" are already classic. The long romance Kim will prob ably stand as the high-water mark of Kipling's achievement. No one else could have written it; and it displays the whole of India—its vague ness. its multitudinous vastness, and its incom prehensibility—in one great panoramic revela tion. the effect of which is indescribable. The two Jangle Books represent a tour de force of another kind, hut no less extraordinary; and in these the highly imaginative quality of Kipling's genius is hest seen, since they take us hack to the older India of unbroken jungle, haunted by memories of the world's long infancy when man and brute were not yet clearly differentiated, but still crouched down together on the breast of Mother Earth. As a poet. Kipling has written with a spirit and a lyric swing that have caught and held the world's attention. In many of these poems lie has so accurately voiced the feeling and aspirations of British Imperialism as to have been styled 'the Laureate of the Empire.' and he has given many stanzas and lines and burning phrases to the records of the literature that lasts.
For an interesting though not wholly sympa thetic appreciation of Kipling. consult Le Gal lienne. Rudyard Kipling (New York. 1900); and for many details. bibliographical and otherwise, see Knowles, .t Kipling Primer (Boston. 1899).