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, John Slater, Alastair Wilson, Peter Havholm, Mary Hamer, Leonee Ormond.


	What's new [July 8th 2008] We have just published notes by John McGivering on "The Tie" and "The Woman in his Life" from Limits and Renewals, and notes by David Page on the three chapters of The Giridih Coalfields, from From Sea to Sea volume II. We have also recently published notes by by David Page on Among the Railway Folk , from From Sea to Sea, by John McGivering on "Dayspring Mishandled" from Limits and Renewals, and by Sharad Keskar on The Eyes of Asia, the four stories based on Indian soldiers' letters from the Great War in 1917. Also notes by John McGivering on "In the Presence", "The Honours of War", and "In the Same Boat", and by John Radcliffe on "My Son's Wife", all from A Diversity of Creatures. Also notes by David Page on six further chapters from "City of Dreadful Night", the reports of Kipling's visit to Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1888, together with his account of his visit to the opium factory in Ghazipur on the way to Calcutta; and extensive notes by Alastair Wilson on that intriguing and enigmatic story "Mrs Bathurst" in Traffics and Discoveries. Recent additions also include notes by John McGivering on "Friendly Brook" from A Diversity of Creatures, and John Radcliffe has updated and extended the ORG notes on two war stories of 1915 from from the same collection; "Mary Postgate", and "Swept and Garnished". We have also recently published notes by John McGivering on "As Easy as A.B.C." and "The Dog Hervey"also from A Diversity of Creatures, and on two other Dog Stories, "Toby Dog" and "Teem— a Treasure-Hunter". Recent additions also include notes by David Page on Letters XVII, XVIII and XIX from Letters of Marque and notes by John McGivering on "The Great Play Hunt" and "The Supplication of the Black Aberdeen". Also notes by Alan Underwood on "The Spring Running", the last of the stories in The Second Jungle Book, together with the poem that follows it "Outsong in the Jungle", and notes on "In the Rukh", which completes our coverage of Many Inventions, and notes by John McGivering on 'They', together with the accompanying poem "The Return of the Children". Also notes by Mary Hamer on the sixteen 'Service Songs' from The Five Nations, including the introductory verses, "The Service Man", and the concluding poem "Recessional", together with the text of the poems: "Chant Pagan" "M.I." "Columns" "The Parting of the Columns" "Two Kopjes" "The Instructor" "Boots" "The Married Man" "Lichtenberg" "Stellenbosh" "Half-Ballad of Waterval" "Piet" "Wilful-Missing" "Ubique" "The Return" "Recessional" To counterpoint Alastair Wilson's notes on Sea Warfare, we have published extracts from The Fighting at Jutland, which consists of first hand accounts by men who were involved in the battle. Other recent additions include notes by Lisa Lewis and John McGivering on a further story from Traffics and Discoveries, 'Wireless'; by David Page on three further letters from Letters of Marque; by John McGivering on a further story from Traffics and Discoveries "Below the Mill Dam"; and notes by Peter Havholm on four further stories from that extraordinarily varied collection, Many Inventions, written during Kipling's time in London in his rooms in Villiers Street, after his return from India, and at Naulakha in Vermont after his marriage to Caroline Balestier 'Brugglesmith' "Love-o'-Women" "The Record of Badalia Herodsfoot", and "The Children of the Zodiac". This completes our notes on Many Inventions We have also recently published notes by John McGivering on the second part of "The Army of a Dream" from Traffics and Discoveries; and notes by Alan Underwood on the remaining stories in The Jungle Books; also a note by Roger Ayers on "Heavy Batteries in India", which is particularly concerned with the use of elephants. To help readers find their way through the verse, we have just 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, there will be a number of 'General Articles', which will be rather like extended articles in the Kipling Journal, and will cover a wide range of themes, including "Kipling as a Science Fiction writer", "Kipling and the Royal Navy", "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. 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 . 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. 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") "Alnaschar and the Oxen" "The American Rebellion" "The Anvil" "Army Head-quarters" "At His Execution" "The Ballad of Minepit Shaw" "Banquet Night" "The Bees and the Flies" "Before a midnight breaks in storm" "The Bell Buoy" "The Bells and Queen Victoria" "Big Steamers" "The Birthright" " 'Bobs' " "Boots" "Bridge-Guard in the Karroo" "The Broken Men" "Brookland Road" "Brown Bess" "Buddha at Kamakura" "The Burial" "Butterflies" "The Captive" "The Centaurs" "The Changelings" "Chant-Pagan" "The Children" "A Code of Morals" "Cold Iron" "Columns" "The Comforters" "A Counting Out Song" "Cruisers" "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" "The Dutch in the Medway" "The Dykes" "Eddi's Service" "Edgehill Fight" "Envoi" (to Life's Handicap) 'Et dona ferentes' "The Explorer "The Feet of the Young Men "The Files "The Four Angels" "Four Feet" "The French Wars" "From the Masjid-al-Aqsa" "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" "Gallio's Song" "Gehazi" "Gertrude's Prayer" "General Joubert" "General Summary" "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" "If--" "In Partibus" "The Instructor" "The Islanders" "James I" "Jane's Marriage" "Jobson's Amen" "The Junk and the Dhow" "Kaspar's Song in 'Varda'" "King Henry VII and the Shipwrights" "The King's Job" "The King's Task" "Kitchener's School" "The Last Department" "The Last Lap" "The Last Ode" "Late Came the God" "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 Married Man" "The Mary Gloster" "McAndrew's Hymn" "Mesopotamia" "Minesweepers" "Municipal" "My Father's Chair" "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" "The Palace" "The Parting of the Columns" "The Peace of Dives" "Pharaoh and the Sergeant" "Philadelphia" "Piet" "Pink Dominoes" "The Pirates in England" "Poor Honest Men" "Poseidon's Law" "The Post that Fitted" "The Portent" "The Power of the Dog" "Prelude" "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" "Rimmon" "The River's Tale" "The Roman Centurion's Song" "The Second Voyage" "A St Helena Lullaby" "The Scholars" "The Sea and the Hills" "The Second Voyage" "The Secret of the Machines" "The Service Man" "The Settler" "Snarleyow" "A Song in Storm" "The Song of Diego Valdez" "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" "To T. A." "To the Companions" "To the Unknown Goddess" "Together" "Tomlinson" "Tommy" "The Totem" "The Trade" "The Truce of the Bear" "A Truthful Song" "The Two Cousins" "Two Kopjes" "Ubique" "Untimely" "The Vineyard" "The Wage-slaves" "The Way through the Woods" "We and They" "The Wet Litany" "What Happened" "White Horses" "The White Man's Burden" "Wilful-Missing" "The Wise Children" "With Drake in the Tropics" "The Young Queen" We have also published over 150 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. 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 who are Members of the Kipling Society. Click here if you are a Member of the Society and wish to see one or more of the available back-numbers and use the new search system to find a word or phrase. Click here if you wish to join the Society in order to make use of this resource.

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