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Britain Unlimited covers 250 Great British people and what made them famous
Who was Rudyard Kipling? Poet and Storywriter.
Date and Place of Birth: 30th December 1865, Bombay, India.
Family Background: Son of John Lockwood Kipling an artist and scholar and Curator of the Lahore Museum in India. Nephew of the wife of Sir Edward Burne-Jones and the Mother of Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister.
Education: United Services College, Westward Ho! Devon
Chronology:
1882: After being sent to England to receive his education he returned to India and took a job as a journalist on the "Civil and Military Gazette" newspaper in Lahore.
1886: "Departmental Ditties was published in his newspaper. He also began to write for the Gazette's sister paper the "Pioneer" in Allahabad.
1889: He returned to England hoping to repeat the literary success that he had achieved already in India.
1890: His first novel "Light that failed" was not well received.
1892: "Barrack Room Ballads" did achieve success. Set out on a world trip on his honeymoon with his new wife and then returned to her home town of Brattleboro in Vermont with the intention of settling there.
1894: "The Jungle Book", written in America, established his fame in England, but still many people here found his poetry distasteful as it smacked of jingoism.
1896: After quarreling with Carrie's brother the Kiplings came to settle in England.
1897: Moved to the Grange in Rottingdean in Sussex.
1899: Death of his daughter Josephine on a visit to the United States.
1901: Publication of the best selling novel "Kim".
1902: Bought house called Bateman's at Burwash, Sussex, which was his home until his death.
1906: Publication of "Puck of Pook's Hill".
1907: Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1914: The War Propaganda Bureau arranged for Kipling to make a visit to Britain's army camps to increase morale.
1915: The Kipling's, who had tried to warn the nation to be prepared for the First World War lost their son John fighting with the Irish Guards in the Battle of Loos at the age of eighteen. He visited the Western Front himself and wrote about his experiences in "France at War." He was also commissioned to write a pamphlet on "The Royal Navy called the Fringes of the Fleet".
1920's/30's: Much of his later writings have been described as proto-modernist and his popularity fell further out of favour with English readers in general.
Written Works:
- 1886: "Departmental Ditties".
- 1887: "Plain Tales from the Hills". "Soldiers Three".
- 1889: "From Sea to Sea".
- 1890: "The Light That Failed".
- 1891: "Life's Handicap".
- 1892: "Barrack Room Ballads". "Naulakha" (published with Wolcott Balestier)
- 1893: "Many Inventions".
- 1894: "The Jungle Book".
- 1895: "The Second Jungle Book".
- 1896: "The Seven Seas".
- 1897: "Captains Courageous".
- 1898: "The Day's Work".
- 1901: "Kim".
- 1902: "Just So Stories".
- 1903: "The Five Nations".
- 1905: "They".
- 1906: "Puck of Pook's Hill".
- 1907: "The Brushwood Boy".
- 1909: "Actions and Reactions".
- 1917: "A Diversity of Creatures". "The Years Between".
- (1937): "Something of Myself". (Autobiography)
Marriage: 1892 to Carrie (Caroline) Balestier the sister of his American friend and writer Wolcott Balestier.
Places of Interest:
SUSSEX:
Museum of the Rottingdean Preservation Society, the Grange, Rottingdean . Bateman's, Burwash.
Date and Place of Death: 18th January 1936, London, England.
Age at Death: 70.
Site of Grave: Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey, London, England.
