The Letters of Rudyard Kipling: 1920-30

The most popular author of his day and a paradox who was both an assertive British imperialist and a man of sensitivity and wide reading, Rudyard Kipling is best remembered now as the author of The Jungle Book, the Just-So Stories, and Kim. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907--the first Englishman to receive this prize. Fully annotated, volumes 5 and 6 conclude the publication of Kipling's letters, a heroic effort that began with the publication of volume 1 in 1990. Volume 5 covers Kipling's renewed energy after the stress of world war and the tragedy of his only son's death at the Battle of Loos in 1915. During these years he traveled extensively (France, Germany, Scotland, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Egypt, Jamaica, Bermuda, and Brazil), received three honorary degrees (from the University of Edinburgh, the Sorbonne, and the University of Strasbourg), published six books (Letters of Travel, The Irish Guards in the Great War, Land and Sea Tales, Debits and Credits, A Book of Words, and Thy Servant a Dog), suffered three serious illnesses, and began the deliberate distribution of his manuscripts. In private life, the greatest change came with the marriage of his surviving child, Elsie. The sixth and last volume focuses on Kipling's final years. Despite his increased suffering, he traveled a great deal (Egypt, France, Marienbad, and Monte Carlo, plus a tour of the Midlands in his new Rolls Royce), published three books (Limits and Renewals, Souvenirs of France, and Collected Dog Stories), and was made an honorary fellow of Magdalene College and a member of the Institut de France. Aware of his approaching end, he worked at two great retrospective efforts: the splendid Sussex Editionand the autobiographical Something of Myself; both were published posthumously. On January 18, 1936, he died in Middlesex Hospital; his ashes are buried in the Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey. Each volume contains a chronology of Kipling's life from 1920-30 and 1931-36, respectively; volume 6 also includes errata for the first four volumes and a comprehensive index to all six volumes of this distinguished collection.