Kipling, Rudyard (1865-1936)

Kipling, Rudyard

NOVELIST, POET, SHORT-STORY WRITER, JOURNALIST (ENGLAND)

BORN 30 Dec 1865, Bombay - DIED 18 Jan 1936, London: Middlesex Hospital
BIRTH NAME Kipling, Joseph Rudyard
CAUSE OF DEATH perforated duodenal ulcer
GRAVE LOCATION London: Westminster Abbey, Broad Sanctuary, Westminster (Poets' Corner (ashes))

Rudyard Kipling was the son of the illustrator and museum curator John Lockwood Kipling (1837-1911) and Alice Kipling, born Macdonald (1837-1910). His parents moved to India in 1865 where Lockwood became Professor at the School of Art. When he was five years old, he was sent to England with his sister Alice. They lived for six years with a couple that boarded children at Lorne Lodge in the Southsea area of Portsmouth. Rudyard had a terrible time there. In 1878 he was admitted to United Services College in Westward Ho!, Devon.

He was not awarded a scholarship for Oxford and his parents lacked the financial means to finance his further education. He returned to India in 1882 where his father had found him a job as assistant editor of a local newspaper. He worked for newspapers in India from 1883 to 1889. In 1888 he published six collections of short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King". This enabled him to move to London. He first travelled from India to the USA and visited many states in that country. In Elmira, New York, he visited Mark Twain. In October 1889 he travelled to Liverpool.

He settled in London and published his first novel "The Light that Failed". He cooperated with the American writer Wolcott Balestier (1861-1891) on another novel, but after suffering a nervous breakdown his doctors advised him to resume travelling and he visited South Africa, Australia, and India. When he heard of Balestier's sudden death he returned to England and before his return he proposed by telegram to Balestier's sister Caroline Starr Balestier (1862-1939). They married on 18 January 1892 at All Souls Church in Langham Place, London. They travelled to the USA, to Japan and back to the USA. Their daughter Josephine was born on 29 December 1892.

Around this time, he started thinking about what would become his "Jungle Books". He lived at a house that he named Naulakha in Dummerston, Vermont. In 1893 he was visited by his father and another visitor was Arthur Conan Doyle, who brought his golf clubs and gave him lessons. He published "The Jungle Book" in 1894 and "The Second Jungle Book" in 1895. In 1896 his second daughter Elsie was born. In that same year, the Kiplings decided to move to England.

They settled in Torquay, Devon for a while. In 1897 their son John was born and the Kiplings moved to Rottingdean near Brighton. In 1898 they travelled to South Africa for a winter holiday. Kipling was famous now and he was received by several politicians. From 1900 to 1908 he would visit South Africa every winter. In 1902 he bought Bateman's, a house in Burwash, East Sussex. There he would live until his death. In 1902 he published his novel "Kim". In 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He declined both the British Poet Laureateship and a knighthood.

At the beginning of the First World War, he wrote pamphlets and poems supporting the UK war aim of restoring Belgium. But despite his antipathy towards Germany, he was critical of the way the UK fought the war. His son John was killed in action during the Battle of Loos in September 1915 at the age of 18. After the war he joined the Imperial War Graves Commission. In 1924 he was an opponent of the Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald that he described as "Bolshevism without bullets". He initially respected Mussolini, but he was an opponent of fascism.

He continued his writing until the early 1930s, but with less success than before. In 1936 he suffered a hemorrhage in his small intestine. He died after surgery in London. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium and his ashes were buried at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Related persons
• was a friend of Doyle, Arthur Conan

Events

0/11/1894	Arthur Conan Doyle visits Rudyard Kipling in Vermont. Doyle and his brother Innes interrupted their American tour to visit Kipling at his home. Doyle had brought his golf clubs and they played a game of golf over frozen ground. [Doyle, Arthur Conan ]
10/12/1907	Rudyard Kipling is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was both the first English author to receive this prize and the youngest recipient to receive the prize.

Images
The gravestones of Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling at the Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, London. Picture by Androom (27 Mar 1996)	Plaque for Rudyard Kipling in Rottingdean, Sussex. Picture by Androom (03 Oct 2014)