Kipling and the Sea: Voyages and Discoveries from North Atlantic to South

by Rudyard Kipling, Andrew Lycett (Editor)

 Kipling may be best known  as a commentator on the British Empire, but he was also a vivid observer and chronicler of the sea—and of ships and all who sailed in them. For him, the sea was the glue which bound the British Empire together. So Kipling wrote copiously about his own voyages—to India, across the Pacific and Atlantic, down to South Africa and Australia— and about the voyages of others. Sailors were particular heroes of his, as adventurers who braved every kind of element and danger in order to reach distant lands. In writing about them, he was enthralled by the romance of the sea, touching  on everything  from pirates to technical changes in ships. At all stages of his life Kipling  peppered his many letters with observations about the sea, encompassing  his own voyages and his other nautical interests. Newly edited and featuring a commentary by Kipling  expert and author of the much-praised Kipling Abroad, Kipling and the Sea illuminates a side of Kipling’s work that has not yet been fully explored.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published August 20, 2013

About the author

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was a journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist.

Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King (1888). His poems include Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), The Gods of the Copybook Headings (1919), The White Man's Burden (1899), and If— (1910). He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story; his children's books are classics of children's literature; and one critic described his work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift".

Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry James said: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known." In 1907, at the age of 41, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, both of which he declined.

Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907 "in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author."

Kipling kept writing until the early 1930s, but at a slower pace and with much less success than before. On the night of 12 January 1936, Kipling suffered a haemorrhage in his small intestine. He underwent surgery, but died less than a week later on 18 January 1936 at the age of 70 of a perforated duodenal ulcer. Kipling's death had in fact previously been incorrectly announced in a magazine, to which he wrote, "I've just read that I am dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers."