From his time till date, Rudyard Kipling’s narrative gift continues to impress readers. Few storytellers can match his literary output in sheer volume, quality of imagination, and masterful execution of style. It is no mean feat that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature at 41—the youngest to ever receive this prize since its inception. Even though Kipling’s esteem in the literary world has fallen over time for his imperialist views, his literary achievements remain a beacon. Here are a few of his best books:
The Jungle Book
‘The Jungle Book‘ is Rudyard Kipling’s most famous book. Published in 1894, it is a collection of stories primarily set in the jungles of India. Most prominent are the Mowgli stories, narrating the adventures of Mowgli, a feral child adopted by Raksha, a she-wolf, and raised in the Seeonee wolf pack. He is mentored by Baloo the bear and Bagheera the Panther and makes a mortal enemy of Shere Khan, a lame tiger. ‘The Jungle Book‘ also contains the story of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, an abandoned mongoose adopted by an English family living in India, who protects his adoptive family from a family of cobras nesting in their garden; Kotick, a white seal that goes on a pilgrimage to find a haven for his seal colony, hunted by human poachers; and Toomai of the elephants, a boy elephant keeper, so trusted by an elephant in his care that it leads him to a dance of elephants deep in the jungle, so hidden than no other living person has ever witnessed it. The popularity of this Rudyard Kipling book makes it one of the most adapted works of literature, and it is a classic children’s book.
The Second Jungle Book
As the sequel to ‘The Jungle Book‘, Rudyard Kipling published ‘The Second Jungle Book‘ in 1895, featuring five more Mowgli stories and three unrelated ones. ‘How Fear Came‘ explores through an origin fable how fear came to exist in the jungle and how the tiger got its stripes. In ‘Letting In the Jungle‘, Mowgli retaliates against the villagers who persecute his adoptive human mother, and organizes the animals of the jungle to overrun their town. In ‘Red Dogs‘, Mowgli allies with Kaa the Python to help take down a pack of rampaging dholes menacing the Seeonee wolf pack that took him in. On the whole, the Mowgli stories of this book present the reader with an older Mowgli and deal with more mature themes.
Just So Stories
‘Just So Stories‘ is a collection of whimsical origin tales that aim to explain natural phenomena to the narrator’s Best Beloved, the name he calls the direct audience for the story. Best Beloved is identified with Rudyard Kipling’s daughter Josephine, who got sick and died of pneumonia at age 6 in 1899, and whom Kipling initially told these tales. The stories imagine how different animals acquired their characteristic features. In ‘The Elephant’s Child‘, a crocodile bites the elephant’s short stubby trunk, which is stretched when the elephant pulls away. To explain a whale’s baleen in ‘How the Whale Got Its Throat‘, a mariner the whale swallowed ties a raft inside its throat to prevent it from swallowing others. In ‘The Sing Song of Old Man Kangaroo‘, the kangaroo got long hind legs by running to escape a dingo dog set after him after he asked to be made different from other animals.
Kim
Published in 1901, this picaresque novel is set between the Second and Third Afghan Wars. It unfolds against the Great Game and power skirmishes between Russia and Great Britain in Central Asia. It is a forerunner to spy novels of the Cold War half a century later. The protagonist, Kim, is the orphan of an Irish color sergeant left to fend for himself in the streets of Lahore, British India. So integrated into the local culture is he that he can pass for an Indian boy. He meets and becomes acquainted with a Tibetan lama trying to escape the “Wheel of Things” and find enlightenment, and they both roam the country. Kim becomes involved with the British Secret Service and bumps into his father’s old regiment, who takes him on. With the support of the lama, he attends a British school and is trained as a spy. In this story, Rudyard Kipling takes the reader on a thrilling adventure and simultaneously immerses the reader into the exotic world of India at the turn of the 20th century.
Stalky & Co
‘Stalky & Co‘ is a collection of school stories based on Rudyard Kipling’s days at United Service College, and the stories feature characters based on real people. Stalky, McTurk, and Beetles (based on Kipling himself) are three school friends, full of derring-do, anti-establishment, worldly-wise, and sardonic. In the stories, they are often at odds with their instructors, cutting capers and getting punished by the instructors, constantly suspecting the boys and open to acting on suspicion when lacking evidence. The boys play wild and costly pranks on teachers and students alike, break school rules routinely, and bully other students occasionally. At times, though, they appear to uphold some semblance of a moral code, which in application is as shocking as their flouting rules. In one of the stories, the three boys bully and torture two boys for bullying a smaller one. Critics are divided on their opinion of the work: some praise its humor and how true to life its portrayal of British boarding school was, while others criticized it for its vulgarity and vicious brutality.
Captain Courageous
‘Captain Courageous‘ was published in 1897 and features a fifteen-year-old spoiled son of a railroad tycoon, Harvey Cheyne Jr. He was washed overboard a steamship and was rescued by a Portuguese fishing boat. Harvey tries to impress on the boat captain, Disko Troop, his wealth and the importance of returning him to port as soon as possible, but the captain is unmoved. Disko Troop also punches him on the nose when Harvey accuses him of stealing his money, which he happened to have left on the steamship he fell off.
Disko Troop assigns Harvey to help his son Dan Troop aboard the fishing vessel. Dan teaches him a few skills, and Harvey acclimates to the challenging life of a fisherman at sea. During the trip, Harvey gains practical skills. He builds character, such that when the fishing boat eventually returns to port, his parents are surprised at the character transformation he undergoes.
