Readers' Guide

The New Readers' Guide
to the works of
Rudyard Kipling

Initiated and guided by George Webb, C.M.G., O.B.E.
Editor of the Kipling Journal 1980-2000

General Editor John Radcliffe, Verse Editor John Walker, Project Group David Page, the late John Slater, Alastair Wilson, Peter Havholm, Mary Hamer, Leonee Ormond.


	What's new [August 23rd 2010] We have just published notes by John Radcliffe on the seven Letters of Travel on Kipling's visit to Egypt in 1913, collected as Egypt of the Magicians. We have also just published notes by John McGivering on "Evarra and his Gods". To support various entries relating to Burma, we have just republished "Kipling's Burma" by George Webb. We have also just published notes by John McGivering and John Radcliffe on "The Ballad of Boh Da Thone". Also notes by John McGivering on "The Lament of the Border Cattle Thief" , "The Ballad of the King's Mercy" and The Ballad of the King's Jest" . Also "The Conundrum of the Workshops", "The Gift of the Sea", "The Rhyme of the Three Captaians" , "The Ballad of the Bolivar" , and "The Ballad of the Clampherdown" . Also "Sestina of the Tramp-Royal", and "The Ballad of East and West"; and notes by John Radcliffe on "A Burgher of the Free State" together with the text of the story, and notes on the accompanying poem "A Carol". We have recently completed our notes on "The Muse among the Motors", the series of twenty-six parodies of earlier poets, with notes on "The Marrčd Drives of Windsor" Also notes by Roger Ayers on a further Barrack Room Ballad, "The 'eathen" . Also notes by David Page on a further four chapters of From Sea to Sea , which cover Kipling's visit to Japan on his way back to London from Calcutta in 1889. We have also recently published: Notes by John McGivering and John Radcliffe on "A Displaie of New Heraldrie". Notes by Alastair Wilson on "A Sea Dog", from Thy Servant a Dog and other Dog Stories. Notes by John McGivering on "The Absent-minded Beggar", Kipling's poem, set to a tune by Sir Arthur Sullivan, which raised Ł340,000 (worth over Ł25m at oresent-day values) for soldiers and their families during the South African War. Notes by John McGivering on "With Number Three", another little-known 'unpublished' story. Also notes by David Page on the first ten chapters of From Sea to Sea. Kipling's reports to the Pioneer from his trip around the world, when he left India in March 1889. Notes by Alastair Wilson on "A Naval Mutiny" in Limits and Renewals. This completes our annotation of that collection. a further update (version 50) of the data from Brian Mattinson's ongoing research on the musical settings of Kipling's verse over the years. This now includes work by 370 composers linked with some 320 song titles. The total number of entries is now nearly 900. Notes by Alastair Wilson of the ORG notes on the Pyecroft stories, together with appendices on The Royal Navy in 1905, warships' boats in that year, and the tangled issue of 'knots an hour'. Also notes by Alastair Wilson on "The Horse Marines", in A Diversity of Creatures, thus completing our annotation of that collection. John McGivering has continued his work on annotating those forty or so stories and articles which are uncollected save for their appearance in the Sussex Edition. Because they are comparatively inaccessible to the general reader, we are publishing the full text of these works on this site together with the notes, and the associated poems. "A Burgher of the Free State" (John Radcliffe) "The Pit that they Digged" "Two Forewords" "Surgical and Medical" "The Pleasure Cruise" "The Soul of a Battalion" "A Displaie of New Heraldrie" "A Reinforcement" "Mary Kingsley" "The Potted Princess" "The Science of Rebellion" (John Radcliffe) "The First Assault upon the Sorbonne" "With Number Three" "Collar-Wallah and the Poison Stick" "The Enlightenments of Pagett, M.P. "Bitters Neat" "Quo Fata Vocant" "The Track of a Lie" "Haunted Subalterns" "A Tour of Inspection" (with Alastair Wilson) "A Village Rifle Club" "The Wreck of the Visigoth" "The Last Relief" "Railway Reform in Great Britain" (with Alastair Wilson) "My First Book" "The Battle of Rupert Square" "How Shakespeare came to write "The Tempest" " "The Legs of Sister Ursula" "The Outsider" "For One Night Only" "Folly Bridge" "The Lamentable Comedy of Willow Wood" "The Benefactors" "On Dry Cow Fishing as a Fine Art" "Mrs Hauksbee Sits Out" "Of Those Called" Other recent additions include: Notes by Alastair Wilson on "The Brushwood Boy", the last story in The Day's Work. Also notes by Roger Ayers on the six articles of "The New Army in Training" (1915), together with the text of the articles. Also notes by Roger Ayers on the Barrack Room Ballad "Follow me 'ome" , and by Sharad Keskar on all twenty-one chapters of "The Naulahka". Notes by David Page on three further articles from The Smith Administration, "A District at Play" , "What it Comes to", and "The Opinions of Gunner Barnabas". Notes by Alastair Wilson on "William the Conqueror", from The Day's Work. Also notes by David Page on "The Ballad of Fisher's Boarding House" from Departmental Ditties and Other Verses, together with the text of the poem. Notes by David Page on three further articles from The Smith Administration, "The Writing of Yakub Khan" , "A King's Ashes", and "The Bride's Progress". Also notes by John Radcliffe on "The Bridge-Builders" from The Day's Work. Notes by Roger Ayers on " Troopin' " from Barrack Room Ballads, together with the text of the poem. Notes by Max Rives on "The Miracle of Saint Jubanus" from Limits and Renewals, by Roger Ayers and Alastair Wilson on the poem 'Soldier an' Sailor too', and by David Page on a further three stories in The Smith Administration from Volume II of From Sea to Sea , "Hunting a Miracle", "The Explanation of Mir Baksh", and "A Letter from Golam Singh". Notes by Alastair Wilson, on "Steam Tactics" from Traffics and Discoveries, and notes by John Radcliffe, with advice from Roger Ayers on various historical points, on "The Tomb of his Ancestors" from The Day's Work. To help readers find their way through the verse, we have published lists of the stories in each collection, giving titles and first lines. "Songs from Books" is yet to be completed. A very successful international conference at the University of Kent on Kipling studies was held on September 7th and 8th 2007. Click here for a list of the papers presented, with links to abstracts; papers shown in red are available in full. The Conference was organised by the School of English to mark the centenary of Kipling's Nobel Prize for Literature. It was directed by Dr Jan Montefiore, author of a new study of Kipling's writings, and sponsored by the Society. Themes in Kipling's works We have developed a system through which you can search for themes and people in Kipling's works. Click here This is not an attempt to define or pigeon-hole particular stories, but rather to give readers the chance of seeing where particular themes or references crop up in his work. Once we have got this system running satisfactorily for the stories, we plan to do likewise for the verse and the journalism. In our discussions about this system we have frequently struck issues which are not easy to resolve, and have concluded with the hope that readers will come back to us with comments and refinements. Please send any comments to the NRG Project Group via johnradcliffe@blueyonder.co.uk Some more recent additions With the agreement of the National Trust we have also recently published the text of the two uncollected Just So Stories,"Ham and the Porcupine", and "The Tabu Tale". We have also recently published extended notes by Leonee Ormond on Chapter IX of 'Captains Courageous' incorporating a good deal of technical detail from John Reading in the United States on Harvey Cheyne's epic rail journey across America from San Diego to Boston. Thanks largely to a massive scanning effort by David Page, helped by Stephen Piper, we have completed the task of making the entire run of over 300 Kipling Journal back-numbers up to two years ago available to users of the NRG who are also members of the Society. The full run, apart from the last eight issues, is now up on this site together with a search system which enables one to search the full text for a word or phrase. See details below. Background to the project This work involves reviewing the entries in the Harbord's Readers' Guide to the Works of Rudyard Kipling (the 'Old Readers' Guide' or ORG), updating and extending them, and in many cases creating new notes. Click here for details of the background to the project. Click here for a Note for Contributors For readers who wish to take a look at the Old Readers' Guide, a note by John Walker is attached. General Articles In addition to the notes on specific works, the Guide includes a number of 'General Articles', which cover a wide range of themes, including "Kipling's Burma, A Literary and Historical Review" by Gerorge Webb, "Kipling and Dreams", "Kipling and the British Army in India", reprinted from the ORG, "Kipling as a Science Fiction writer", "Kipling and the Royal Navy", "A note on the Pyecroft stories" , "Kipling's Biographers", and "Kipling and Music", which are already available. Michael Smith has now completed his "Kipling's Sussex". We have also published a major article by Dr Gillian Sheehan on "Kipling and Medicine". We have also just published a substantial article by Professor Hugh Brogan on "Kipling and History". Feedback As contributions to the Guide are drafted, we are publishing them on this site, where they are available not only for use, but for scrutiny and criticism. The great advantage of on line publication is that we can make the Guide a responsive interactive document, which can be modified swiftly in response to people's comments, rather than a fixed and final publication. The entries are dated so that readers are aware of what is new. If you have any thoughts about the pages we have published so far, or about the plans we have laid out, or if you have experience you can bring to the Project, we will be very glad to hear from you. Please email to John Radcliffe, Secretary of the Project Group, and On Line Editor for the Society. Kipling Journal back-numbers We have made the 12,000 or so pages of Kipling Journal back-numbers available on line as plain text-files (apart from the eight most recent issues) to users of this Guide. Click here to see one or more of the available back-numbers and use the search system to find a word or phrase. Click here if you wish to join the Society. Copyright Editors and contributors are committing a substantial amount of work to the NRG, much of which is original. By agreeing to contribute, contributors are giving the Society the right to publish their work freely on the web, but if commercial publication in any other form (print or CD-ROM) is envisaged, their author's rights remain. The Kipling Society allows users of the NRG on line, whether or not they are members of the Society, the right to freely download sections to their computers, or to print them out for personal use. However if any wider use is envisaged, this cannot be permitted without prior authorisation from the Society. Please send any enquiries to johnradcliffe@blueyonder.co.uk . Reference material Throughout the Guide we are providing detailed notes, explaining references in specific stories and poems. We are planning also to include a newly revised version of John McGivering's A Kipling Dictionary originally created by W Arthur Young and published in 1911, updated by John McGivering in 1967, and published by Macmillan. Click here to see the results of preliminary work on this.		Kipling's verse As well as the stories and reports, we have completed entries on the following poems: "1914-1918" ("Harwich Ladies") "The Absent-minded Beggar" "The Advertisement" "Akbar's Bridge" "Alnaschar and the Oxen" "The American Rebellion" "The Anvil" "Army Head-quarters" "Arterial" "At His Execution" "Azrael's Count" "The Ballad of Boh Da Thone" "The Ballad of Fisher's Boarding House" "The Ballad of Minepit Shaw" "The Ballad of the "Bolivar"" "The Ballad of the Car" "The Ballad of the "Clampherdown"" "The Ballad of East and West" "The Ballad of the King's Jest" "The Ballad of the King's Mercy" "Banquet Night" "The Beginner" "The Bees and the Flies" "Before a midnight breaks in storm" "The Bell Buoy" "The Bells and Queen Victoria" "Big Steamers" "The Birthright" " 'Bobs' " "The Bonfires" "Boots" "The Bother" "The Braggart" "Bridge-Guard in the Karroo" "The Broken Men" "Brookland Road" "Brown Bess" "Buddha at Kamakura" "The Burial" "Butterflies" "The Captive" "Carmen Circulare" "A Carol" "The Centaurs" "The Changelings" "Chant-Pagan" "The Children" "A Child's Garden" "A Code of Morals" "The Coiner" "Cold Iron" "Columns" "The Comforters" "Contradctions" "The Conundrum of the Workshops" "A Counting Out Song" "The Consolations of Memory" "The Craftsman" "Cruisers" "The Curé" "Dane-geld" "Danny Deever" "The Dawn Wind" "Dedication" (The Five Nations) "Delilah" "A Departure" "The Destroyers" "Dinah in Heaven" "Dirge of Dead Sisters" "The Disciple" "Divided Destinies" "The Dutch in the Medway" "The Dying Chauffeur" "The Dykes" "The 'eathen" "Eddi's Service" "Edgehill Fight" "The English Flag" "Envoi" (to Life's Handicap) 'Et dona ferentes' "Evarra and his Gods "The Expert" "The Explorer "Fastness" "The Feet of the Young Men "The Files "Follow me 'ome" "The Four Angels" "Four Feet" "The Four Points" "The French Wars" "From the Masjid-al-Aqsa" "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" "Gallio's Song" "Gehazi" "Gertrude's Prayer" "General Joubert" "General Summary" "The Gift of the Sea " "Gipsy Vans" "The Glory of the Garden" "Gow's Watch - Act IV Scene 4" "Gow's Watch - Act V Scene 3" "Half-Ballad of Waterval" "Helen All Alone” "His Apologies" "The Holy War" "Hymn to Physical Pain" "The Idiot Boy" "If--" "In Partibus" "The Instructor" "The Inventor" "The Islanders" "James I" "Jane's Marriage" "Jobson's Amen" "The Junk and the Dhow" "The Justice's Tale" "Kaspar's Song in 'Varda'" "King Henry VII and the Shipwrights" "The King's Job" "The King's Pilgrimage" "The King's Task" "Kitchener's School" "Lady Geraldine's Hardship" "The Lament of the Border Cattle Thief" "The Landau" "The Last Department" "The Last of the Light Brigadet" "The Last Lap" "The Last Ode" "The Last Suttee" "Late Came the God" "The Legends of Evil" "A Legend of the Foreign Office" "A Legend of Truth" "The Lesson" "Lichtenberg" "The Lowestoft Boat" "The Looking Glass" "Lord Roberts" "M.I." "MacDonough's Song" "The Man who could Write" "The Marrčd Drives of Windsor" "The Married Man" "The Mary Gloster" "McAndrew's Hymn" "Mesopotamia" "Minesweepers" "The Moral" "The Mother's Son" "Municipal" "The Muse among the Motors" "My Boy Jack" "My Father's Chair" "Naaman's Song" "Neighbours" "The New Knighthood". "Norman and Saxon" "The North Sea Patrol" "The Old Issue" "The Old Men" "Oonts" "Our Fathers Also" "Our Lady of the Snows" "Outsong in the Jungle" "Pagett, M.P." "The Palace" "The Parting of the Columns" "The Peace of Dives" "The Penalty" "Pharaoh and the Sergeant" "Philadelphia" "Piet" "Pink Dominoes" "The Pirates in England" "The Playmate" "Poor Honest Men" "Poseidon's Law" "The Post that Fitted" "The Portent" "The Power of the Dog" "Prelude" "The Progress of the Spark" "Prologue to the Master-Cook's Tale" "Public Waste" "The Puzzler" "The Rabbi's Song" "Rahere" "Rebirth" "Recessional" "The Reeds of Runnymede" "The Reformers" "The Return" "The Return of the Children" "The Rhyme of the Three Captains" "Rimmon" "The River's Tale" "The Roman Centurion's Song" "Route Marchin'" "The Rupaiyat of Omar Kal'vin" "Screw-Guns" "The Second Voyage" "A St Helena Lullaby" "The Scholars" "The Sea and the Hills" "The Second Voyage" "The Secret of the Machines" "Sepulchral" "The Service Man" "Sestina of the Tramp-Royal" "The Settler" "Snarleyow" "Soldier an' Sailor too" "A Song in Storm" "The Song of Diego Valdez" "Song of Seventy Horses" "Song of the Old Guard" "Song of the Wise Children" "South Africa" "Stellenbosh" "The Story of Uriah" "Study of an Elevation" "The Supplication of the Black Aberdeen". "The Survival" "Sussex" "The Thousandth Man" "The Threshold" "To a Lady, Persuading her to a Car" "To Motorists" "To T. A." "To the Companions" "To the Unknown Goddess" "Together" "Tomlinson" "Tommy" "The Totem" "The Tour" " Troopin' " "The Truce of the Bear" "A Truthful Song" "The Two Cousins" "Two Kopjes" "Ubique" "Untimely" "The Veterans" "The Vineyard" "The Wage-slaves" "The Way through the Woods" "We and They" "The Wet Litany" "What Happened" "When the Journey was intended to the City" "White Horses" "The White Man's Burden" "Wilful-Missing" "The Wise Children" "With Drake in the Tropics" "The Young Queen" We have also published the text of over 300 of the poems on this site by kind agreement of the National Trust. Guidance on the verse Providing guidance on the verse is a massive task because of the sheer volume of Kipling's work, over 550 published poems, and at least as many again which remain unpublished. There were plans for two Harbord volumes on the verse, but only one was published. The notes for the other are thought to still exist, but so far we have not succeeded in tracing them. John Walker, who is taking overall responsibility for the Verse section of the New Readers' Guide has prepared a list of the principal collections in which Kipling's verse has appeared over the years, with the abbreviations we will be using in the indexing system. We are indexing the notes on the verse by titles, first lines, collections, and in date order. We hope to be able to include a good deal of material which has only previously been published in the Harbord Guide (the ORG) A second version of the Index, still a working document, is available arranged by alphabetically by title, or by first line. Using the Guide There will be a section of the Guide for each story, poem, and other work. To find the stories you can click on The stories listed in the red sidebar on the left (or from the links below), which is an alphabetical list of all the stories. Those stories for which we have an entry are in red, and if you click on them this will take you to the entry. In most cases there is an introductory page, from which you can jump to detailed notes on the text. You can also find stories via The stories in their collections in the sidebar - or from the links below. Wherever you are in the Guide, a click on the grey and red Readers' Guide logo in the top left hand corner will take you back to this page. A click on the Elephant's head (Ganesha) logo at the top of the sidebar will take you back to the Home-page for the site. Some useful links Works of Rudyard Kipling Poems of Rudyard Kipling Searching the Kipling Journal Themes in Kipling's works Project Gutenberg The Rudyard Kipling list at JiscMail The new Kipling Bibliography Library of Congress, Washington D.C. University of Sussex Special Collections British Library Catalogues SOLDIER - Magazine of the British Army Rum Ration - The Navy Network

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