Rudyard Kipling, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. He was born in Bombay, in the Bombay Presidency of British India, and was taken by his family to England when he was five years old. Kipling is best known for his works of fiction, including The Jungle Book (1894) (a collection of stories which includes "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"), Kim (1901) (a tale of adventure), many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888); and his poems, including Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), 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 enduring classics of children's literature; and his best works are said to exhibit "a versatile and luminous narrative gift".

Kipling was one of the most popular writers in England, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The author Henry James said of him: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known." In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English language writer to receive the prize, and to date he remains its youngest recipient. Among other honours, he was sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, all 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. A young George Orwell called him a "prophet of British imperialism". According to critic Douglas Kerr: "He 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."

In 1967 the Royal Swedish Post edited a stamp with Rudyard Kipling and Alphonse Laveran.

[]http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-batemans

Kipling was made a Mason in the Lodge of Hope and Perseverance No. 782 in Lahore.

• https://vtdigger.org/2017/12/31/kiplings-brief-stormy-stay-vermont/
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/584/rudyard-kipling

Author, Nobel Prize in Literature Recipient. Born the son of John Lockwood Kipling, a teacher at the Jeejeebhoy School of Art, and Alice MacDonald Kipling in Bombay, India. His care was entrusted to his ayah who taught him Hindustani in the nursery. At six, he was taken to England by his parents, and, for five years, he was left at a foster home in Southsea where he learned to hate his treatment and his situation. In 1878, he entered United Services College, a boarding school in Devon. He returned to India in 1882, where he worked as a journalist in Lahore for the Civil and Military Gazette and as an assistant editor and overseas correspondent in Allahabad for the Pioneer. His literary career began with Departmental Ditties in 1886, but he became better known as a writer of short stories. Stories written during his years in India were collected in the anthology The Phantom Rickshaw. He wrote prolifically and achieved fame quickly. In 1889, he returned to England and published Life's Handicap in 1891, and Barrack-Room Ballads which included the poem "Gunga Din." In 1892, he married Caroline Starr Balestier, the sister of an American publisher, and moved to Vermont in the United States. After the death of his daughter Josephine, however, he took his family back to England and settled in Burwash, Sussex. He published The Jungle Book in 1894, Captains Courageous in 1897, Kim in 1901, and Just So Stories in 1902 among many others. He was regarded as an unofficial poet laureate since he refused that and many other honors, among them the Order of Merit. In 1907, he became a Nobel Laureate in Literature. During World War I, his young son, John, was killed at the Battle of Loos and, in response, Kipling joined the Imperial War Graves Commission, contributing to the project the Biblical quote: "Their Name Liveth For Evermore" (Ecclesiastes 44:14) which was inscribed on Stones of Remembrance over war graves. In 1923, he published The Irish Guards in the Great War, a history of his son's regiment, but his output of fiction and poetry declined. He served as Rector at the University of St. Andrews from 1922 to 1925. In 1926, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Society of Literature, which had been awarded only three times before. He wrote until the early 1930s, but at a slower pace and with less success than previously. His autobiography, Something of Myself, was published posthumously in 1937. After the death of his widow in 1939, his house in Sussex was bequeathed to the National Trust and is now a museum dedicated to the author.