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Plain Tales from the Hills
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208 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1888
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About the author
Rudyard Kipling
7,151 books3,671 followersJoseph 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."
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."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 192 reviews
February 10, 2012
This is a difficult book for me to review, since I read it as a freebie e-book. The table of contents sucks, and I can't go back and navigate the book -- at least not in a way that I can figure out. You get what you pay for. That said, a lot of these Kipling short story collections ARE available free. If you want to read these short stories in their original collection context (as opposed to some collection anthology), you can do so.
I read Plain Tales over a considerable stretch of time, so it's difficult for me to recall many of the stories (and I think there's something like 40 in the collection). It's not that they're forgettable, it's that many of them exist as short sketches, and do not resonate or follow a story "arc" that readers are normally accustomed to reading. A good comparison would be Hemingway's early (and outstanding) collection, In Our Time, and perhaps the works of Katherine Anne Porter. Basically, what you're getting is a writer's writer, who has a keen eye for observation, but also one who captures the human factor. Descriptions of English life in India, a mixing of two completely different cultures, provide the stuff for Kipling's efforts here. Where I think Kipling differs from Hemingway and Porter (and Mansfield), is that many of these (very short) stories are quite funny. But there is also tragedy, and horror, in some of them. If interested, try the very first story in the collection, "Lisbeth," which is quite sad," There is also racism, and in one case, anti-Semitism. Kipling was a complicated dude. Interestingly, while reading this collection, I stopped to flip through a bio on Conrad, wondering just what Kipling's contemporaries thought of him. In one passage Conrad, and friends, via letters, deplored Kipling's imperialistic views, but acknowledged his genius. If you're going to read this great writer, and he is a great writer, I suggest that the approach be that of Conrad and his friends.
I read Plain Tales over a considerable stretch of time, so it's difficult for me to recall many of the stories (and I think there's something like 40 in the collection). It's not that they're forgettable, it's that many of them exist as short sketches, and do not resonate or follow a story "arc" that readers are normally accustomed to reading. A good comparison would be Hemingway's early (and outstanding) collection, In Our Time, and perhaps the works of Katherine Anne Porter. Basically, what you're getting is a writer's writer, who has a keen eye for observation, but also one who captures the human factor. Descriptions of English life in India, a mixing of two completely different cultures, provide the stuff for Kipling's efforts here. Where I think Kipling differs from Hemingway and Porter (and Mansfield), is that many of these (very short) stories are quite funny. But there is also tragedy, and horror, in some of them. If interested, try the very first story in the collection, "Lisbeth," which is quite sad," There is also racism, and in one case, anti-Semitism. Kipling was a complicated dude. Interestingly, while reading this collection, I stopped to flip through a bio on Conrad, wondering just what Kipling's contemporaries thought of him. In one passage Conrad, and friends, via letters, deplored Kipling's imperialistic views, but acknowledged his genius. If you're going to read this great writer, and he is a great writer, I suggest that the approach be that of Conrad and his friends.
March 17, 2022
True to its title, "Plain Tales From The Hills", Kipling's first major work as a writer, is indeed a collection of humdrum situations. The title also refers ironically to how the stories and their characters and situations span from the hills to the plains of India, the very regions where Kipling worked as a journalist on his return to his birthplace in adulthood. Having been born in Bombay and having spent a brief but indelible childhood in India, he returned to chronicle and even critique the expansion of the Empire with both a boyish curiosity and a critical gaze.
And even as this early work comprising some of his most enduring short stories does lack some of the concise clarity that was to be found in his later stories, one cannot deny its importance and also the fact that it established the most lasting of Kipling's landscapes - the burgeoning community of soldiers, subalterns, civil servants and their wives and sweethearts trying to carry on the working of not only the Empire but also their own dubious intentions.
Indeed, many of the stories are plain but trust Kipling and his peerless skill at instinctive, spontaneous storytelling to flesh out these humdrum stories with plenty of scathing wit, unexpected moments of vulnerability and romance and a lot of juicy scandal and gossip as well. Many of the tales, such as "Three - And An Extra", "The Bronckhorst Divorce Case" and "On The Strength Of A Likeness" are concerned with hilarious situations of adultery and duplicity but many others are also concerned with soldiers, policemen and civil servants and the many misadventures that they face, with some even bordering on surreal and fantastical, ensuing even more hilarity from the proceedings, as in tales like "The Arrest Of Lieutenant Golightly", "The Rout Of The White Hussars" and "The Bisara Of Pooree", all of which are memorably amusing and even terrifyingly comic in turns.
But there is also more than just satire or broad comedy to these "plain tales" indeed as evidenced by quite a few specimens of this collection that are remarkably darker and grimmer than the rest and also talk of more serious and even disturbing realities that normally one would choose to ignore. "Thrown Away", for instance, is a dark, elegiac story of a young, fresh-faced soldier who is unable to cope with the casual humiliations of his posting in this strange country and who succumbs to it tragically; "Beyond The Pale" and "Lispeth" portray, in their alternating shades of portending disaster and satirical betrayal, the inevitable failure of the East and the West to meet and unite in romantic bliss. "The Gate of Hundred Sorrows" is something unexpectedly mature and piercing - a bleak, bitter chronicle of an opium addict's state of suicidal bliss and disorientation - and "In The House of Suddhoo" even dabbles in false superstitions and black magic with a hilarious note.
There are also two stories which try to present a possible and ultimately futile point of reconciliation between the East and the West, the colonizers and their subjects. "The Story of Muhammad Din", a lovely little story that I had read first in my adolescence, starts on a sweet and gentle note and then ends, unexpectedly, with a tragic denouement. "To Be Filed For Reference", on the other hand, presents us a British subaltern who has already crossed the frontier and has now taken to the life of a Mohammedan fakir but who also suffers from the consequence of the same in its hard-hitting conclusion.
All these stories are superbly written, enlivened by Kipling's droll wit and silken sarcasm and even as a few of them, like the ones featuring the Soldiers Three - Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd - which go on for a little too long and also feel ponderous, nevertheless there is not even one story in this collection which would really try one's patience. Kipling's understanding of not only India and the Indian subaltern community but also of marriage, love, friendship, duplicity and betrayal comes to the fore and even as many of the stories, as said before, deal with complicated subjects and moral conundrums, the winsome wit ensures that we read each one of them with a wicked grin on our faces. There are also many interestingly self-serving, grotesque, hapless and even admirably charming characters to be found in these tales and the ones that will remain the longest with me are Mrs. Hauksbee of Simla, with her skill at wooing any man around her, married or not, and good old Strickland of the Police Department who knows more about native life than the natives themselves.
The darkest and possibly the best story of the collection, however, has to be "The Other Man" - an early example of the lucid perfection and seamless blend of genres and styles that Kipling's later successes - such as "The Man Who Would Be King" or "Without Benefit Of Clergy". Here, in this short tale of a marriage gone disastrously awry due to a sick wife and an uncaring husband and a third man in this angle and how everything culminates even more terribly in the end, due to the steep climb from the hot plains up to the hills. In many ways, this is one of Kipling's finest stories and even a superb palate cleanser for the Gothic horror of "At The Pit's Mouth".
In her preface, Jan Montefiore, who deserves a lion's share of credit for superbly editing these stories together, remarks astutely about Kipling's paradoxical nature, calling him both "a Victorian and a modernist", thus both the prophet of the Empire, as Orwell called him, and also a man capable of revealing the cracks and seams in the pukka plaster of its foundations. "Plain Tales From The Hills" might be an early and, occasionally flawed, work by Kipling but like everything else that he wrote, it demonstrates not only his duality of perspective but also his tremendous, instinctive gift of storytelling to the best of his abilities.
And even as this early work comprising some of his most enduring short stories does lack some of the concise clarity that was to be found in his later stories, one cannot deny its importance and also the fact that it established the most lasting of Kipling's landscapes - the burgeoning community of soldiers, subalterns, civil servants and their wives and sweethearts trying to carry on the working of not only the Empire but also their own dubious intentions.
Indeed, many of the stories are plain but trust Kipling and his peerless skill at instinctive, spontaneous storytelling to flesh out these humdrum stories with plenty of scathing wit, unexpected moments of vulnerability and romance and a lot of juicy scandal and gossip as well. Many of the tales, such as "Three - And An Extra", "The Bronckhorst Divorce Case" and "On The Strength Of A Likeness" are concerned with hilarious situations of adultery and duplicity but many others are also concerned with soldiers, policemen and civil servants and the many misadventures that they face, with some even bordering on surreal and fantastical, ensuing even more hilarity from the proceedings, as in tales like "The Arrest Of Lieutenant Golightly", "The Rout Of The White Hussars" and "The Bisara Of Pooree", all of which are memorably amusing and even terrifyingly comic in turns.
But there is also more than just satire or broad comedy to these "plain tales" indeed as evidenced by quite a few specimens of this collection that are remarkably darker and grimmer than the rest and also talk of more serious and even disturbing realities that normally one would choose to ignore. "Thrown Away", for instance, is a dark, elegiac story of a young, fresh-faced soldier who is unable to cope with the casual humiliations of his posting in this strange country and who succumbs to it tragically; "Beyond The Pale" and "Lispeth" portray, in their alternating shades of portending disaster and satirical betrayal, the inevitable failure of the East and the West to meet and unite in romantic bliss. "The Gate of Hundred Sorrows" is something unexpectedly mature and piercing - a bleak, bitter chronicle of an opium addict's state of suicidal bliss and disorientation - and "In The House of Suddhoo" even dabbles in false superstitions and black magic with a hilarious note.
There are also two stories which try to present a possible and ultimately futile point of reconciliation between the East and the West, the colonizers and their subjects. "The Story of Muhammad Din", a lovely little story that I had read first in my adolescence, starts on a sweet and gentle note and then ends, unexpectedly, with a tragic denouement. "To Be Filed For Reference", on the other hand, presents us a British subaltern who has already crossed the frontier and has now taken to the life of a Mohammedan fakir but who also suffers from the consequence of the same in its hard-hitting conclusion.
All these stories are superbly written, enlivened by Kipling's droll wit and silken sarcasm and even as a few of them, like the ones featuring the Soldiers Three - Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd - which go on for a little too long and also feel ponderous, nevertheless there is not even one story in this collection which would really try one's patience. Kipling's understanding of not only India and the Indian subaltern community but also of marriage, love, friendship, duplicity and betrayal comes to the fore and even as many of the stories, as said before, deal with complicated subjects and moral conundrums, the winsome wit ensures that we read each one of them with a wicked grin on our faces. There are also many interestingly self-serving, grotesque, hapless and even admirably charming characters to be found in these tales and the ones that will remain the longest with me are Mrs. Hauksbee of Simla, with her skill at wooing any man around her, married or not, and good old Strickland of the Police Department who knows more about native life than the natives themselves.
The darkest and possibly the best story of the collection, however, has to be "The Other Man" - an early example of the lucid perfection and seamless blend of genres and styles that Kipling's later successes - such as "The Man Who Would Be King" or "Without Benefit Of Clergy". Here, in this short tale of a marriage gone disastrously awry due to a sick wife and an uncaring husband and a third man in this angle and how everything culminates even more terribly in the end, due to the steep climb from the hot plains up to the hills. In many ways, this is one of Kipling's finest stories and even a superb palate cleanser for the Gothic horror of "At The Pit's Mouth".
In her preface, Jan Montefiore, who deserves a lion's share of credit for superbly editing these stories together, remarks astutely about Kipling's paradoxical nature, calling him both "a Victorian and a modernist", thus both the prophet of the Empire, as Orwell called him, and also a man capable of revealing the cracks and seams in the pukka plaster of its foundations. "Plain Tales From The Hills" might be an early and, occasionally flawed, work by Kipling but like everything else that he wrote, it demonstrates not only his duality of perspective but also his tremendous, instinctive gift of storytelling to the best of his abilities.
February 18, 2024
For any author it's more difficult to deal with such stories (instead of novels) as you have less time and space to prove your skills and keep the reader alert.
Mr. Kipling has some beautiful ones, as On The City Wall, some normal ones and a real piece of garbage: "Dray Wara Yow Dee"...
Mr. Kipling has some beautiful ones, as On The City Wall, some normal ones and a real piece of garbage: "Dray Wara Yow Dee"...
January 23, 2018
A young subaltern, ribbed by his regiment for his sweet and gentle demeanour—especially cruelly ribbed by the Senior Subaltern—makes a public promise to repay the debt. A little boy, whose best friends happen to be the Indians he fraternises with, becomes the reason for an amendment in an important ryotwari act. A frustrated young man commits suicide and two of his colleagues come to the rescue of his parents, far away in England…
The characters who people Kipling’s Plain Tales From The Hills are a very varied lot, ranging all the way from (and these are in the majority) the ‘Anglo-Indians’, the Englishmen and women who came out to India, to the natives, to the others to be found then in India: Chinese immigrants, part-Portuguese, part-Indian ‘half-breeds’, and more. The problems they face and the situations they find themselves in are equally varied, with romantic entanglements being the most common: unwanted loves, unattainable loves, misplaced loves, loves to be drawn back from their straying. The treatment of the stories is very different, too, all the way from the hilarity of yarns like The Rout Of The White Hussars to the poignancy of something like Thrown Away. There is the cuteness of Tod’s Amendment and the somewhat spooky mumbo-jumbo-cloaked crookery of The House of Suddhoo.
What I liked most about Plain Tales From The Hills was the immense readability of these stories, and, of course, Kipling’s versatility: he is as adept at humour as he is with drama or tragedy or even something approaching the supernatural. His insight into human character is good, and his characters themselves are often memorable. And the biggest plus: he brings to us the India—especially the Simla—of the British Raj vividly to life.
The characters who people Kipling’s Plain Tales From The Hills are a very varied lot, ranging all the way from (and these are in the majority) the ‘Anglo-Indians’, the Englishmen and women who came out to India, to the natives, to the others to be found then in India: Chinese immigrants, part-Portuguese, part-Indian ‘half-breeds’, and more. The problems they face and the situations they find themselves in are equally varied, with romantic entanglements being the most common: unwanted loves, unattainable loves, misplaced loves, loves to be drawn back from their straying. The treatment of the stories is very different, too, all the way from the hilarity of yarns like The Rout Of The White Hussars to the poignancy of something like Thrown Away. There is the cuteness of Tod’s Amendment and the somewhat spooky mumbo-jumbo-cloaked crookery of The House of Suddhoo.
What I liked most about Plain Tales From The Hills was the immense readability of these stories, and, of course, Kipling’s versatility: he is as adept at humour as he is with drama or tragedy or even something approaching the supernatural. His insight into human character is good, and his characters themselves are often memorable. And the biggest plus: he brings to us the India—especially the Simla—of the British Raj vividly to life.
March 7, 2018
Ugh - people on Goodreads reviewing books published 130 years ago complaining that they don't conform to modern ideals and sensibilities...
You don't have to defend attitudes of the past to learn from reading about them, and Kipling's book is a fascinating glimpse of life for the British in Nineteenth Century India. Small, intimate episodes of every day life, some humorous, some bittersweet, some ugly, but all authentic in a way that sweeping period epics can't achieve. The storytelling is simple, yet effective, and the overall picture painted is one that brings the period to life.
You don't have to defend attitudes of the past to learn from reading about them, and Kipling's book is a fascinating glimpse of life for the British in Nineteenth Century India. Small, intimate episodes of every day life, some humorous, some bittersweet, some ugly, but all authentic in a way that sweeping period epics can't achieve. The storytelling is simple, yet effective, and the overall picture painted is one that brings the period to life.
April 12, 2015
This was a bit hit and miss. Lots of short stories, some linking through with repeated characters. Each of the stories is set in Simla (Shimla), the hill station where the British 'Summered'.
I had to give the ones written in that gibberish that was intended as an Irish dialect, a miss. It was not well done, and made reading the story too painful to persist with, so I skipped over those (four, I think?) stories.
It was interesting that the narrator told some stories, and was involved in some stories, even comments to the reader in places.
Of the forty )approx) stories, there were a half dozen stories that were very good, twenty that were entertaining and readable, another ten that just didn't entertain, leaving the four unread stories mentioned above.
Overall, worth the read. I picked up a 1910 copy of this, and three other Kipling books, so I expect i will leave the other three for a while before tackling.
I had to give the ones written in that gibberish that was intended as an Irish dialect, a miss. It was not well done, and made reading the story too painful to persist with, so I skipped over those (four, I think?) stories.
It was interesting that the narrator told some stories, and was involved in some stories, even comments to the reader in places.
Of the forty )approx) stories, there were a half dozen stories that were very good, twenty that were entertaining and readable, another ten that just didn't entertain, leaving the four unread stories mentioned above.
Overall, worth the read. I picked up a 1910 copy of this, and three other Kipling books, so I expect i will leave the other three for a while before tackling.
December 3, 2008
Rudyard Kipling's Kim is one of my favorite books in the world. For the few hours every year that I spend re-reading it, I'm in a magical world. And the ending never fails to leave me with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat.
I've read and deeply enjoyed Kipling's Jungle Books as well. So when I heard, around fifteen years ago, that Kipling had written many more stories set in the India of his youth, and that some of them even featured Strickland Sahib from Kim, I immediately headed over to Wordsworth in Harvard Square (Cambridge, MA) to get a copy of Plain Tales from the Hills.
I didn't enjoy it, and after a story or two I stopped reading. It seemed dark and depressing to me. It lacked the essential sense of wonder and joy that colors all of Kim. Without young Kimball O'Hara and his delight in discovering the world, Kipling's India seemed a cynical and gloomy place.
And it is, in large measure. But when I picked up the book again recently, I found it far better than my first impression. Kipling was, after all, a master storyteller. His view of human nature was penetrating, and he had an eye for the tragedy and comedy of life. His experience as a child in India gave him a rich cultural palette to use in his writing, albeit it from an ultimately colonialist viewpoint. The stories in PTftH, some of the earliest he published, tend to be short, insightful, and gripping. Quite a few are extremely funny, as well. Since most of these stories were published the Lahore Civil and Military Gazette, Kipling had no literary pretensions (not that he was noted for such, anyway); he was young, and writing in an impermanent medium to entertain paying customers. I should note that years later he edited many of stories in the collection, and added several new ones.
The language has not dated badly, even after 120 years. Readers of Kim will not find Plain Tales from the Hills more difficult than that book. The Penguin Classics edition is annotated, as I presume all modern editions must be, so the Indian words and phrases that Kipling uses may be deciphered when the meaning can't be gleaned from the context.
There are four stories about a group of three Irish privates in the Army which deserve special note. Kipling represents the lower-class dialect of those soldiers in nearly impenetrable spelling - as Kipling himself notes in one of the stories, dialect is not his strongest suit. I found myself repeatedly puzzling over the language, repeating it aloud to try and sound out the meaning of the apparently meaningless words.
Comprehension finally dawned in almost every case, but the process slowed my progress through the stories to a crawl. That's a pity, because they include some of the most lively, interesting, and exciting passages in the collection.
Two more specifics:
"The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows" - I don't want to spoil this one, but it stuck in my mind very strongly - this may have been the strongest and most memorable story in the book. Kipling captured a state of mind and an essential despair beyond despair that is quite haunting.
"Beyond the Pale" is the most horrific story in the collection, I think. The fate of the young girl at the end was quite disturbing and sad. It bothered me, frankly, and I don't think I'll read it again.
I wasn't particularly impressed with the annotation in this edition, however. The annotations are, at times, a bit terse and cryptic. I also find it particularly annoying that when Kipling makes a reference to Shakespeare or the Bible, the annotation simply lists a reference in the most terse format possible, i.e. "Matthew 10, 16" or "Hamlet, III, iv, 205-7". I'm better read than the average American; I've read the King James Bible several times, as well as the complete works of Shakespeare. I've even performed in a local production of Romeo and Juliet. Nonetheless, I cannot recall verses and passages from these references (with certain exceptions, of course), and I don't think that most other modern readers can, either. This sort of arrogance simply serves to further alienate the public from classic literature.
The annotator, David Trotter, also wrote the introduction to this edition. I earnestly advise the reader to skip that introduction until you've finished reading the book. Trotter commits the unforgivable sin of explaining too much, "spoiling" some of the stories. He sucks all the juice out of Kipling with his academic approach, or tries to. The introduction does include some interesting information, though, so it's worth reading after completing the book.
Of course, since the book is no longer under copyright, it is also available freely online: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1858
Plain Tales from the Hills lacks the warmth and delight of Kim. Nonetheless, it's well-written (naturally!), exciting, at times very funny, and presents some rare insights into human nature. What more can a reader expect?
I've read and deeply enjoyed Kipling's Jungle Books as well. So when I heard, around fifteen years ago, that Kipling had written many more stories set in the India of his youth, and that some of them even featured Strickland Sahib from Kim, I immediately headed over to Wordsworth in Harvard Square (Cambridge, MA) to get a copy of Plain Tales from the Hills.
I didn't enjoy it, and after a story or two I stopped reading. It seemed dark and depressing to me. It lacked the essential sense of wonder and joy that colors all of Kim. Without young Kimball O'Hara and his delight in discovering the world, Kipling's India seemed a cynical and gloomy place.
And it is, in large measure. But when I picked up the book again recently, I found it far better than my first impression. Kipling was, after all, a master storyteller. His view of human nature was penetrating, and he had an eye for the tragedy and comedy of life. His experience as a child in India gave him a rich cultural palette to use in his writing, albeit it from an ultimately colonialist viewpoint. The stories in PTftH, some of the earliest he published, tend to be short, insightful, and gripping. Quite a few are extremely funny, as well. Since most of these stories were published the Lahore Civil and Military Gazette, Kipling had no literary pretensions (not that he was noted for such, anyway); he was young, and writing in an impermanent medium to entertain paying customers. I should note that years later he edited many of stories in the collection, and added several new ones.
The language has not dated badly, even after 120 years. Readers of Kim will not find Plain Tales from the Hills more difficult than that book. The Penguin Classics edition is annotated, as I presume all modern editions must be, so the Indian words and phrases that Kipling uses may be deciphered when the meaning can't be gleaned from the context.
There are four stories about a group of three Irish privates in the Army which deserve special note. Kipling represents the lower-class dialect of those soldiers in nearly impenetrable spelling - as Kipling himself notes in one of the stories, dialect is not his strongest suit. I found myself repeatedly puzzling over the language, repeating it aloud to try and sound out the meaning of the apparently meaningless words.
Comprehension finally dawned in almost every case, but the process slowed my progress through the stories to a crawl. That's a pity, because they include some of the most lively, interesting, and exciting passages in the collection.
Two more specifics:
"The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows" - I don't want to spoil this one, but it stuck in my mind very strongly - this may have been the strongest and most memorable story in the book. Kipling captured a state of mind and an essential despair beyond despair that is quite haunting.
"Beyond the Pale" is the most horrific story in the collection, I think. The fate of the young girl at the end was quite disturbing and sad. It bothered me, frankly, and I don't think I'll read it again.
I wasn't particularly impressed with the annotation in this edition, however. The annotations are, at times, a bit terse and cryptic. I also find it particularly annoying that when Kipling makes a reference to Shakespeare or the Bible, the annotation simply lists a reference in the most terse format possible, i.e. "Matthew 10, 16" or "Hamlet, III, iv, 205-7". I'm better read than the average American; I've read the King James Bible several times, as well as the complete works of Shakespeare. I've even performed in a local production of Romeo and Juliet. Nonetheless, I cannot recall verses and passages from these references (with certain exceptions, of course), and I don't think that most other modern readers can, either. This sort of arrogance simply serves to further alienate the public from classic literature.
The annotator, David Trotter, also wrote the introduction to this edition. I earnestly advise the reader to skip that introduction until you've finished reading the book. Trotter commits the unforgivable sin of explaining too much, "spoiling" some of the stories. He sucks all the juice out of Kipling with his academic approach, or tries to. The introduction does include some interesting information, though, so it's worth reading after completing the book.
Of course, since the book is no longer under copyright, it is also available freely online: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1858
Plain Tales from the Hills lacks the warmth and delight of Kim. Nonetheless, it's well-written (naturally!), exciting, at times very funny, and presents some rare insights into human nature. What more can a reader expect?
June 24, 2025
Rudyard Kipling gathered his first set of short stories into this volume, first published in 1888. The “hills” refer to the cooler location favored by the British Raj during Indian summers and the “plain” refers to the lower regions, which doesn’t mean a whole lot, but just thought I’d include that for reference. Kipling sits on my elite bookshelf, reserved for authors whose written words seem to take on a life of their own (Robert Louis Stevenson and Mr. Dickens sit comfortably next to Rudyard). While some of the stories in this book may not shine as brightly as others, Kipling’s ability to keep the reader glued to the page is still strong.
I won’t go into every one of the stories as there thirty-eight total, but I would like to note some of the tales that stood out for me.
THE THREE MUSKETEERS
This story introduces the reader to the Soldiers Three who would become some of Kipling’s most popular characters. They are rascals, but good rascals. Their attempt to get a military parade cancelled AND to get paid for doing so, is mischievous but light-hearted.
THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES
“Pluffles” is a young officer in the British army who becomes obsessed with a married woman, even though he has a fiancée back home in England. Mrs. Hauksbee, who will be a recurring character in Kipling stories, comes to the rescue albeit because she dislikes the married woman, as opposed to doing an honorable deed.
THROWN AWAY
This is Kipling’s warning against parents who spoil their children, which prevents the young adults from being able to handle basic, everyday pressures. It’s a tragic story, but definitely one with lessons. Still very relevant in the today’s world (perhaps more so).
With Kipling, there is always an ability to define his characters. Even if they are deplorable, there is something else there. It also becomes clear how much he loved the land of India, with the mangoes and the dust and the highland mists. The environment comes right through the pages. My edition is the 1899 publication by Charles Scribner’s Sons, full of heavy, uncut pages (I had to read so I had to cut).
Book Season = Summer (midday sun)
I won’t go into every one of the stories as there thirty-eight total, but I would like to note some of the tales that stood out for me.
THE THREE MUSKETEERS
This story introduces the reader to the Soldiers Three who would become some of Kipling’s most popular characters. They are rascals, but good rascals. Their attempt to get a military parade cancelled AND to get paid for doing so, is mischievous but light-hearted.
THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES
“Pluffles” is a young officer in the British army who becomes obsessed with a married woman, even though he has a fiancée back home in England. Mrs. Hauksbee, who will be a recurring character in Kipling stories, comes to the rescue albeit because she dislikes the married woman, as opposed to doing an honorable deed.
THROWN AWAY
This is Kipling’s warning against parents who spoil their children, which prevents the young adults from being able to handle basic, everyday pressures. It’s a tragic story, but definitely one with lessons. Still very relevant in the today’s world (perhaps more so).
With Kipling, there is always an ability to define his characters. Even if they are deplorable, there is something else there. It also becomes clear how much he loved the land of India, with the mangoes and the dust and the highland mists. The environment comes right through the pages. My edition is the 1899 publication by Charles Scribner’s Sons, full of heavy, uncut pages (I had to read so I had to cut).
Book Season = Summer (midday sun)
October 6, 2014
This is book number two in my challenge to read the complete works of Rudyard Kipling, in the order in which they were published.
I have fond memories of Kipling's Just So Stories from when I was a child, and I was later exposed to several of his short stories during my undergraduate years. After having read Plain Tales from the Hills I feel like I can say that if you want to understand the genre of the short story or learn how to write it, read Rudyard Kipling. He mixes character with the right amount of plot, keeps it short yet creates an arc, and always ends with some sort of revelation, twist, or dialogue that changes your perception while closing the story.
I could write a 20 page term paper on this book, but alas I'm not going to. I am going to mention a few of my thoughts though:
1. Recurring characters: across some of the stories we see consistent characters, characters who you can appreciate with just one tale but that really expand when read across multiple tales. I'm captivated by the character of Mrs. Hauksbee and hope that she appears in some of Kiplings later short stories, and I also really like the character of Strickland. It's as if Kipling is trying to paint an entire world, dipping into different aspects of society for the reader's benefit and pleasure.
2. Narrator as a consistent character: there is a consistent narrative voice throughout the stories, a narrator that refers to other stories and even to himself. What intrigues me is that while the narrator participates in many stories (tying skeletons to horses and the like) he is illusive and mysterious, un-characterized compared to the detailed descriptions we see of the other characters throughout the story. The narrator often speaks directly to the reader and even comments on his storytelling.
3. Race: like Mark Twain, Kipling is a product of his time, and any post-colonial reading could easily rip him to shreds. At the same time, he has a lot of respect for "the native" and often mocks the white European viewpoint and traditions, including the sense of colonial superiority. For example, in the very first story "Lispeth," the main character, and Indian, is raised by the Chaplain's wife but after having her heart broken returns to her original home and religion. We read:
" 'There is no law whereby you can account for the vagaries of the heathen,' said the Chaplain's wife, 'and I believe that Lispeth was always at heart an infidel.' Seeing she had been taken into the Church of England at the mature age of five weeks, this statement does not do credit to the Chaplain's wife."
A few of my favorite stories from the collection:
-Three and an Extra
-Miss Youghal's Sais
-The Rescue of Pluffles
-His Wedded Wife
-Venus Annodomini
I would definitely reread this collection, and recommend it to those who would like to become familiar with Kipling's adult-focused stories.
I have fond memories of Kipling's Just So Stories from when I was a child, and I was later exposed to several of his short stories during my undergraduate years. After having read Plain Tales from the Hills I feel like I can say that if you want to understand the genre of the short story or learn how to write it, read Rudyard Kipling. He mixes character with the right amount of plot, keeps it short yet creates an arc, and always ends with some sort of revelation, twist, or dialogue that changes your perception while closing the story.
I could write a 20 page term paper on this book, but alas I'm not going to. I am going to mention a few of my thoughts though:
1. Recurring characters: across some of the stories we see consistent characters, characters who you can appreciate with just one tale but that really expand when read across multiple tales. I'm captivated by the character of Mrs. Hauksbee and hope that she appears in some of Kiplings later short stories, and I also really like the character of Strickland. It's as if Kipling is trying to paint an entire world, dipping into different aspects of society for the reader's benefit and pleasure.
2. Narrator as a consistent character: there is a consistent narrative voice throughout the stories, a narrator that refers to other stories and even to himself. What intrigues me is that while the narrator participates in many stories (tying skeletons to horses and the like) he is illusive and mysterious, un-characterized compared to the detailed descriptions we see of the other characters throughout the story. The narrator often speaks directly to the reader and even comments on his storytelling.
3. Race: like Mark Twain, Kipling is a product of his time, and any post-colonial reading could easily rip him to shreds. At the same time, he has a lot of respect for "the native" and often mocks the white European viewpoint and traditions, including the sense of colonial superiority. For example, in the very first story "Lispeth," the main character, and Indian, is raised by the Chaplain's wife but after having her heart broken returns to her original home and religion. We read:
" 'There is no law whereby you can account for the vagaries of the heathen,' said the Chaplain's wife, 'and I believe that Lispeth was always at heart an infidel.' Seeing she had been taken into the Church of England at the mature age of five weeks, this statement does not do credit to the Chaplain's wife."
A few of my favorite stories from the collection:
-Three and an Extra
-Miss Youghal's Sais
-The Rescue of Pluffles
-His Wedded Wife
-Venus Annodomini
I would definitely reread this collection, and recommend it to those who would like to become familiar with Kipling's adult-focused stories.
February 1, 2021
My interest in "Plain Tales from the Hills" was provoked by the sarcastic praise of Jorge Luis Borges in his introduction to "Dr. Brodie's Report" in which he describes the stories in the Kipling collection as having predictable endings with clear messages. On the surface, Borges appears to have a point. "Plain Tales from the Hills" is a collection of short pieces that conform to the conventions of comic writing that prevailed in the popular press in the Anglo-Saxon world during the Victorian era. They are still extremely funny 130 years later. Their true value, however, is for the remarkable portrait that they provide of Anglo-Indian society.
Born in Bombay, Kipling grew up in an India in which the members of India's multiple ethnic communities had to follow strictly defined behaviour patterns in how they dealt with each other. Inter-personal relations within the communities were also highly ritualistic. Nowhere were the rules more rigorously enforced than within the Anglo-Indian society which had a very strong caste system. At the top were the members of the Indian civil service. Next came the army. The merchants compromised another group. Kipling's father was the director of an Art College he and his family were among the casteless of the English community.
"Plain Tales from the Hills" is filled with stories of individuals who come a cropper when they fail to respect the rules. Most learn how to live within the rules of Anglo-Indian society but some are totally crushed falling into alcoholism, having nervous breakdowns or committing suicide. With tropical diseases added to mix, deaths abound in Kipling's book.
Kipling sneers at how the colonial system works. One gets ahead by accepting one's place in society and waiting one's turn. One cannot get ahead faster by working harder. You could only marry someone that met the criteria for your specific level in the army or civil service. Marriage to an Indian leads to expulsion from Anglo-Indian society.
Kipling's great sin was that he was too curious about Indian culture. He learned more than was allowed. He spoke Hindi. He studied Indian art and folklore. Kipling's family was unable to pay for him to go Oxford which meant that he could even sit for the Indian civil service examinations. He felt no vocation for the military profession. There was no place in India and so in 1899 he left never to return.
Kipling has gone down into history as a man who defended the Empire that rejected him. "Plain Tales from the Hills" is a remarkable work that exposes much of what was wrong with that Empire
Born in Bombay, Kipling grew up in an India in which the members of India's multiple ethnic communities had to follow strictly defined behaviour patterns in how they dealt with each other. Inter-personal relations within the communities were also highly ritualistic. Nowhere were the rules more rigorously enforced than within the Anglo-Indian society which had a very strong caste system. At the top were the members of the Indian civil service. Next came the army. The merchants compromised another group. Kipling's father was the director of an Art College he and his family were among the casteless of the English community.
"Plain Tales from the Hills" is filled with stories of individuals who come a cropper when they fail to respect the rules. Most learn how to live within the rules of Anglo-Indian society but some are totally crushed falling into alcoholism, having nervous breakdowns or committing suicide. With tropical diseases added to mix, deaths abound in Kipling's book.
Kipling sneers at how the colonial system works. One gets ahead by accepting one's place in society and waiting one's turn. One cannot get ahead faster by working harder. You could only marry someone that met the criteria for your specific level in the army or civil service. Marriage to an Indian leads to expulsion from Anglo-Indian society.
Kipling's great sin was that he was too curious about Indian culture. He learned more than was allowed. He spoke Hindi. He studied Indian art and folklore. Kipling's family was unable to pay for him to go Oxford which meant that he could even sit for the Indian civil service examinations. He felt no vocation for the military profession. There was no place in India and so in 1899 he left never to return.
Kipling has gone down into history as a man who defended the Empire that rejected him. "Plain Tales from the Hills" is a remarkable work that exposes much of what was wrong with that Empire
Read
March 17, 2022for uni
February 3, 2016
Kipling is mostly a forgotten figure in America these days, where he is known primarily as the author of the children's stories in the "The Jungle Book" or a propagandist for the bad, racist British empire. Yet many clearly saw him as a great writer, enough so that he was one of the most popular writers of his time in the UK and took home a Nobel Prize. This made me curious, so I picked up his collected works in e-book form for a pittance. This book (his first, published in 1888) turned out to be a very interesting surprise - a series of gritty short stories focused on the lives of British colonial workers and soldiers in India, with a realistic, modern orientation. I found myself looking up many words and phrases that were clearly a part of everyday life there and then but which are no longer used much.
The pieces focus usually on the folly of some man, a long way from home, who runs afoul of the confusing conditions of life in Simla or elsewhere. There are stories of men caught in hopeless, foolish romances, ridiculous conflicts with each other, bureaucratic craziness, opium and alcohol addiction, and illness. There are stories of men trying clumsily to deal with the foreign (and not very advanced) cultures they are tasked with overseeing. Many of the pieces are humorous, but it is usually a pained humor that is dry and cynical.
The basis of colonialism, i.e. the idea that the British had the right and duty to rule over the Indian subcontinent, is never questioned, and this lack of shame will no doubt turn off some contemporary readers. But those who want to read some very well-written fiction set in the milieu of Victorian Colonial India will be rewarded. It has a transportive quality, and it takes you not to the mythical wonderland of the British Raj, but to a believable, troubled depiction of it.
The pieces focus usually on the folly of some man, a long way from home, who runs afoul of the confusing conditions of life in Simla or elsewhere. There are stories of men caught in hopeless, foolish romances, ridiculous conflicts with each other, bureaucratic craziness, opium and alcohol addiction, and illness. There are stories of men trying clumsily to deal with the foreign (and not very advanced) cultures they are tasked with overseeing. Many of the pieces are humorous, but it is usually a pained humor that is dry and cynical.
The basis of colonialism, i.e. the idea that the British had the right and duty to rule over the Indian subcontinent, is never questioned, and this lack of shame will no doubt turn off some contemporary readers. But those who want to read some very well-written fiction set in the milieu of Victorian Colonial India will be rewarded. It has a transportive quality, and it takes you not to the mythical wonderland of the British Raj, but to a believable, troubled depiction of it.
February 23, 2022
Kipling is one of those writers where, I don’t necessarily want to be able to write just like him, but there’s nobody I’d rather read.
June 24, 2023
My experiences with Kipling to date have mainly been Disneys Jungle Book, Mandalay as a marvellous Sinatra song and the children fables which I read and loved in my school days, so this is my first journey into the literary Kipling.
Plain tales is a very early collection of short stories portraying the colonial British and to some extent the natives of India, it's a surprisingly funny, but also in places rather touching collection.
Kipling is obviously an integrated part of the colonial imperialistic system and even though he clearly loves India and to some extent, respect the native Indians, his description of them and their culture and religions can be difficult to read today, which makes this a 3 star experience only.
November 3, 2025
los primeros relatos prometian mucho pero esto es mucho hombre, mucha testosterona, mucho colonialismo... nada woke no nos gusta 👎🏻
February 20, 2021
Cuentos de cuando la India era una colonia británica, con sus bailes, con sus intrigas y con su vida.
Un mundo en el que los nativos apenas figuran porque forman una sociedad por aparte.
Muy lindos relatos de una tierra que hoy es más fantástica que la Tierra Media.
Un mundo en el que los nativos apenas figuran porque forman una sociedad por aparte.
Muy lindos relatos de una tierra que hoy es más fantástica que la Tierra Media.
January 30, 2018
Yesterday's Fad, Today's Flat Beer
I believe Kipling was wildly popular in his day. This collection of stories about English life in India may have entranced the masses and sold a lot of newspapers in the first decade of the 20th century, but in the context of over a hundred years later, they have lost most of their shine. While Kipling might have been the foremost raconteur of British India, compared to great short story writers like Chekhov, de Maupassant, or Twain, he comes across today as coy and contrived. Certain phrases make their appearance in far too many of the tales, for example: "Once there was a....but that's another story." Cute kids, the wisdom of animals, the wiles of the fair sex, the unfathomable nature of "natives", gruff officers, perfect ladies, the one-dimensional earthiness of the common soldier---these are stories filled with stereotypes. Kipling's stories may hold your interest for a short time and you can wonder at the change in taste that has occurred between 1907, when he published these, and today. In many tales, Kipling depicts the lifestyle among the higher echelons of the British Raj, but only through a veil of irony or humor. A regular topic is the struggle for social status among the British; efforts to short circuit the pecking order and reversals suffered thereby. People marrying "beneath them" or trying to marry "above them" are often found here. Though people still refer to Kipling as "a writer about India", it is still true that he wrote about his compatriots, not about India. The two or three tales with Indian characters who are anything other than servants lack any depth. Even the pathos-filled "Story of Muhammad Din", which shows understanding, ultimately deals with illness as something inevitable in India---there are no questions as to why death came to small Indian children so frequently. Overall, Kipling provides a certain local color to British literature of the late 19th and early 20th century, but cannot be regarded as a great British writer on the level of Maugham, Conrad, Lawrence, Forster or Greene because he lacks broader humanity, deep thought, and universal vision.
I believe Kipling was wildly popular in his day. This collection of stories about English life in India may have entranced the masses and sold a lot of newspapers in the first decade of the 20th century, but in the context of over a hundred years later, they have lost most of their shine. While Kipling might have been the foremost raconteur of British India, compared to great short story writers like Chekhov, de Maupassant, or Twain, he comes across today as coy and contrived. Certain phrases make their appearance in far too many of the tales, for example: "Once there was a....but that's another story." Cute kids, the wisdom of animals, the wiles of the fair sex, the unfathomable nature of "natives", gruff officers, perfect ladies, the one-dimensional earthiness of the common soldier---these are stories filled with stereotypes. Kipling's stories may hold your interest for a short time and you can wonder at the change in taste that has occurred between 1907, when he published these, and today. In many tales, Kipling depicts the lifestyle among the higher echelons of the British Raj, but only through a veil of irony or humor. A regular topic is the struggle for social status among the British; efforts to short circuit the pecking order and reversals suffered thereby. People marrying "beneath them" or trying to marry "above them" are often found here. Though people still refer to Kipling as "a writer about India", it is still true that he wrote about his compatriots, not about India. The two or three tales with Indian characters who are anything other than servants lack any depth. Even the pathos-filled "Story of Muhammad Din", which shows understanding, ultimately deals with illness as something inevitable in India---there are no questions as to why death came to small Indian children so frequently. Overall, Kipling provides a certain local color to British literature of the late 19th and early 20th century, but cannot be regarded as a great British writer on the level of Maugham, Conrad, Lawrence, Forster or Greene because he lacks broader humanity, deep thought, and universal vision.
February 19, 2024
"But that is another story."
(1888). I went back to the beginning of Kipling's career and his first claim to fame because I'm starting to realize that, as with Typee and The Pickwick Papers, when a great author's first work was a publishing phenomenon, there was probably a good reason. Also I sensed I'm going to become a Kipling completist.
This book is a work of art. Kipling wrote these (very) short stories in his early 20s, but you'd never know it. He seems at ease and in command. He is a natural storyteller, and already you can see his gift for sensory detail. The sentences are short, expressive, informal and witty. As stupid as it sounds, he writes about people. The unfortunate title is a play on words, referring to the plains of India and the simple nature of the tales, though I can't put my finger on exactly what makes them feel simple. Maybe because they often cover lifespans in six or seven pages.
I cobbled my reading together from two audiobook versions and an ebook that included two tales above the usual forty (Haunted Subaltern and Bitters Neat). Even the worst are good. The standouts were:
A Bank Fraud
In the Pride of His Youth
Beyond the Pale
The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin (lighter than the other three, but I liked the writing).
Other favorites were Pig, The Story of Muhammad Din, Miss Youghal's Sais, Bitters Neat, and False Dawn. My notes (or lack thereof) as I went through the collection:
Lispeth--"Being a savage by birth..." Not that I care, but Kipling's sarcasm whenever he uses this word could not be more obvious. What is savage here is the Englishman's behavior.
Three and an Extra.
Thrown Away--"Going to shoot big game" a young man says before committing suicide. The body is found by the brr-brr of flies. "We saw from his accounts how very seriously he had taken everything.”
Miss Youghal's Sais--A detective becomes a master of outlandish Indian disguises to solve crime. Wonderfully colorful character. Wish there were more of him. Would make a great hero in a detective series.
Yoked with an Unbeliever--another one of Kipling's callow cads who'd been sent out to "tea." Kipling can sketch a character so well and with such economy.
False Dawn--Funny. Like Wodehouse. There's even a banjo. Great description of an Indian dust storm.
The Rescue of Pluffles--another Wodehousian story, with the hapless Pluffles playing the prize between two warring women and their "trial of strength."
Cupid's Arrow.
Haunted Subalterns--"Look here, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but—try to think now—haven't you done something—committed some—murder that has slipped your memory—or forged something . . .?" A banjo-playing ghost haunts an officer. Why on earth was this story cut from the book?
The Three Musketeers.
His Chance in Life--Everything Kipling imagines feels so true.
Watches of the Night--Quaint English village shenanigans in India.
The Other Man--Story of another very sad life, told humanely.
Consequences--"[A] benevolent despotism like ours..." With just a few funny details a whole world of provincial politics is brought to colorful life.
The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin--Hilarious voice in this one. One of my favorites.
The Taking of Lungtungpen--Kipling showing his talent for yarns in the vernacular.
Bitters Neat--"Understand clearly, I don't for a moment defend Miss Tallaght. She was wrong—absurdly wrong—but attachments like hers must sprout by the law of averages, just to remind people that Love is as nakedly unreasoning as when Venus first gave him his kit and told him to run away and play." This is typical of Kipling--always pretending to side with the bien-pensant. This, by the way, is the other tale that early on got removed from most editions. Which is nuts.
A Germ Destroyer--I like how the viceroy is tickled by everything.
Kidnapped--I keep seeing Wodehouse, now in the genius brain of Mrs Hauksbee, which reminded me of Jeeves, oddly enough. Marriage should be arranged by the state, narrator argues humorously.
The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly.
In the House of Suddhoo--Borges called this (along with Beyond the Pale and The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows) a laconic masterpiece. It's a grotesque glimpse into the criminal ways of Indian life.
His Wedded Wife--"[W]e... esteemed him a beast of the worst kind. We felt sorry for him, though.” Those lines sum up the tone of this whole book.
The Broken-link Handicap.
Beyond the Pale-heartbreaking and nightmarish. It's almost cruel of Kipling to make his readers so comfortable and then slide this knife into their vitals.
In Error.
A Bank Fraud--A+. Such a touching and beautiful account of a kind man, humoring a dying enemy. Put tears in my eyes.
Tods' Amendment--Cute. Like the Wee Willie Winkie tales to come.
The Daughter of the Regiment--"'An' that,' said Mulvaney, illogically, 'is the cause why little Jhansi McKenna is fwhat she is." About a cholera outbreak. That "illogically" makes the story even more moving.
In the Pride of His Youth--“Then Dicky... wrote queer half-boy, half-man letters, saying that life was not so enjoyable after all and would the little wife wait yet a little longer?” Story of a young man whose only sin was the optimism of youth. Another Kipling character your heart goes out to. His tone is biting. “The letter struck at Dicky's naked heart; but, not being officially entitled to a baby, he could show no sign of trouble.”
Pig--Kipling's essay-like voice reminds me of later humorists like Benchley and A.P. Herbert. This one's great. The funniest part is when you realize the prankster is actually reading all these tracts on pigs.
The Rout of the White Hussars--Ok, this story of a prank was just kind of silly.
The Bronckhorst Divorce Case--The return of Detective Strickland! A criminal case based on "native evidence," meaning no jury would convict, since the Indians can be bought to say (or do) anything.
Venus Annodomini.
The Bisara of Pooree--“Remember, in case you ever find it, that you must not destroy the Bisara of Pooree. I have not time to explain why just now..." I love these little eccentricities of Kipling's narrators.
A Friend's Friend--another good Bertie Wooster-type predicament.
The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows--Opium dens aren't what they used to be. Kipling's first published story. The sense of lurid reportage is astonishing for an 18-year-old.
The Madness of Private Ortheris--echoes of Mandalay, except the longing is for home.
The Story of Muhammad Din--Heartwarming, then heartbreaking.
On the Strength of a Likeness--Another foolish young man falls in love. Charming story.
Wressley on the Foreign Office--A great official is driven to the heights of inspiration (in his dry domain) only to find his work unappreciated by a frivolous audience (the girl he's courting). He's never the same after. Portrait of a failed artist in the form of a bureaucrat.
By Word of Mouth--shades of Appointment in Samarra.
To Be Filed for Reference--Classic character, comic and pathetic.
(1888). I went back to the beginning of Kipling's career and his first claim to fame because I'm starting to realize that, as with Typee and The Pickwick Papers, when a great author's first work was a publishing phenomenon, there was probably a good reason. Also I sensed I'm going to become a Kipling completist.
This book is a work of art. Kipling wrote these (very) short stories in his early 20s, but you'd never know it. He seems at ease and in command. He is a natural storyteller, and already you can see his gift for sensory detail. The sentences are short, expressive, informal and witty. As stupid as it sounds, he writes about people. The unfortunate title is a play on words, referring to the plains of India and the simple nature of the tales, though I can't put my finger on exactly what makes them feel simple. Maybe because they often cover lifespans in six or seven pages.
I cobbled my reading together from two audiobook versions and an ebook that included two tales above the usual forty (Haunted Subaltern and Bitters Neat). Even the worst are good. The standouts were:
A Bank Fraud
In the Pride of His Youth
Beyond the Pale
The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin (lighter than the other three, but I liked the writing).
Other favorites were Pig, The Story of Muhammad Din, Miss Youghal's Sais, Bitters Neat, and False Dawn. My notes (or lack thereof) as I went through the collection:
Lispeth--"Being a savage by birth..." Not that I care, but Kipling's sarcasm whenever he uses this word could not be more obvious. What is savage here is the Englishman's behavior.
Three and an Extra.
Thrown Away--"Going to shoot big game" a young man says before committing suicide. The body is found by the brr-brr of flies. "We saw from his accounts how very seriously he had taken everything.”
Miss Youghal's Sais--A detective becomes a master of outlandish Indian disguises to solve crime. Wonderfully colorful character. Wish there were more of him. Would make a great hero in a detective series.
Yoked with an Unbeliever--another one of Kipling's callow cads who'd been sent out to "tea." Kipling can sketch a character so well and with such economy.
False Dawn--Funny. Like Wodehouse. There's even a banjo. Great description of an Indian dust storm.
The Rescue of Pluffles--another Wodehousian story, with the hapless Pluffles playing the prize between two warring women and their "trial of strength."
Cupid's Arrow.
Haunted Subalterns--"Look here, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but—try to think now—haven't you done something—committed some—murder that has slipped your memory—or forged something . . .?" A banjo-playing ghost haunts an officer. Why on earth was this story cut from the book?
The Three Musketeers.
His Chance in Life--Everything Kipling imagines feels so true.
Watches of the Night--Quaint English village shenanigans in India.
The Other Man--Story of another very sad life, told humanely.
Consequences--"[A] benevolent despotism like ours..." With just a few funny details a whole world of provincial politics is brought to colorful life.
The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin--Hilarious voice in this one. One of my favorites.
The Taking of Lungtungpen--Kipling showing his talent for yarns in the vernacular.
Bitters Neat--"Understand clearly, I don't for a moment defend Miss Tallaght. She was wrong—absurdly wrong—but attachments like hers must sprout by the law of averages, just to remind people that Love is as nakedly unreasoning as when Venus first gave him his kit and told him to run away and play." This is typical of Kipling--always pretending to side with the bien-pensant. This, by the way, is the other tale that early on got removed from most editions. Which is nuts.
A Germ Destroyer--I like how the viceroy is tickled by everything.
Kidnapped--I keep seeing Wodehouse, now in the genius brain of Mrs Hauksbee, which reminded me of Jeeves, oddly enough. Marriage should be arranged by the state, narrator argues humorously.
The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly.
In the House of Suddhoo--Borges called this (along with Beyond the Pale and The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows) a laconic masterpiece. It's a grotesque glimpse into the criminal ways of Indian life.
His Wedded Wife--"[W]e... esteemed him a beast of the worst kind. We felt sorry for him, though.” Those lines sum up the tone of this whole book.
The Broken-link Handicap.
Beyond the Pale-heartbreaking and nightmarish. It's almost cruel of Kipling to make his readers so comfortable and then slide this knife into their vitals.
In Error.
A Bank Fraud--A+. Such a touching and beautiful account of a kind man, humoring a dying enemy. Put tears in my eyes.
Tods' Amendment--Cute. Like the Wee Willie Winkie tales to come.
The Daughter of the Regiment--"'An' that,' said Mulvaney, illogically, 'is the cause why little Jhansi McKenna is fwhat she is." About a cholera outbreak. That "illogically" makes the story even more moving.
In the Pride of His Youth--“Then Dicky... wrote queer half-boy, half-man letters, saying that life was not so enjoyable after all and would the little wife wait yet a little longer?” Story of a young man whose only sin was the optimism of youth. Another Kipling character your heart goes out to. His tone is biting. “The letter struck at Dicky's naked heart; but, not being officially entitled to a baby, he could show no sign of trouble.”
Pig--Kipling's essay-like voice reminds me of later humorists like Benchley and A.P. Herbert. This one's great. The funniest part is when you realize the prankster is actually reading all these tracts on pigs.
The Rout of the White Hussars--Ok, this story of a prank was just kind of silly.
The Bronckhorst Divorce Case--The return of Detective Strickland! A criminal case based on "native evidence," meaning no jury would convict, since the Indians can be bought to say (or do) anything.
Venus Annodomini.
The Bisara of Pooree--“Remember, in case you ever find it, that you must not destroy the Bisara of Pooree. I have not time to explain why just now..." I love these little eccentricities of Kipling's narrators.
A Friend's Friend--another good Bertie Wooster-type predicament.
The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows--Opium dens aren't what they used to be. Kipling's first published story. The sense of lurid reportage is astonishing for an 18-year-old.
The Madness of Private Ortheris--echoes of Mandalay, except the longing is for home.
The Story of Muhammad Din--Heartwarming, then heartbreaking.
On the Strength of a Likeness--Another foolish young man falls in love. Charming story.
Wressley on the Foreign Office--A great official is driven to the heights of inspiration (in his dry domain) only to find his work unappreciated by a frivolous audience (the girl he's courting). He's never the same after. Portrait of a failed artist in the form of a bureaucrat.
By Word of Mouth--shades of Appointment in Samarra.
To Be Filed for Reference--Classic character, comic and pathetic.
Read
April 12, 2015Kipling comes with some challenging baggage but he remains undoubtedly a great and entertaining writer, particularly in the short story form as in this collection. So what do we have in this collection? The central theme of course is colonial India, and mainly one specific geographic area, Simla, which Kipling had spent several periods of leave in. A number of the stories are also connected by several characters that appear or are referenced in more than one tale.
However, while connected by theme and characters, the nature of the tales varies considerably. There are; comedies; morality tales; sad stories; maudlin tales, a supernatural yet comedic yarn; and one moment of sudden horror. A great read which makes me glad that I have more Kipling short stories waiting in my to be read plies.
NB some editions of this collection are abridged. The edition I read was the Penguin Popular Classics ISBN 0140620923 version and it is unabridged.
However, while connected by theme and characters, the nature of the tales varies considerably. There are; comedies; morality tales; sad stories; maudlin tales, a supernatural yet comedic yarn; and one moment of sudden horror. A great read which makes me glad that I have more Kipling short stories waiting in my to be read plies.
NB some editions of this collection are abridged. The edition I read was the Penguin Popular Classics ISBN 0140620923 version and it is unabridged.
August 9, 2013
Crisp, memorable storytelling. I was reminded of two other books, which couldn’t be more different from each other, but which each share something in common with Kipling’s early work in this collection of tales.
First, Turgenev’s A Sportsman’s Notebook. There’s something in the relaxed narrative tone, perhaps – wavering always between engaged/interested and disengaged/disinterested. You’re entirely in the narrator’s hands with both Turgenev and Kipling, but the author’s grasp is so perfectly controlled that you hardly feel it.
Second, Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. In this case, the commonality is the exoticism, the out-of-placeness, and the cumulative effect of the stories which add up to an opium-dream of alien encounter and failed understanding.
First, Turgenev’s A Sportsman’s Notebook. There’s something in the relaxed narrative tone, perhaps – wavering always between engaged/interested and disengaged/disinterested. You’re entirely in the narrator’s hands with both Turgenev and Kipling, but the author’s grasp is so perfectly controlled that you hardly feel it.
Second, Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. In this case, the commonality is the exoticism, the out-of-placeness, and the cumulative effect of the stories which add up to an opium-dream of alien encounter and failed understanding.
August 2, 2015
Stellar! One of the best reads for me in a long time. I picked up this old red calf-bound copy for $3 along with a matching copy of Kim from a second hand store. I had only read the first Jungle Book by Kipling before, and I wanted to remedy that. What a great choice as a first read! Yes I know it's full of racist comments. Yes I know it's a relic of empire. People it's period work! If you can't take an object for what it is and where it came from grow up. I read the book as an example of an Anglo-Indian telling us stories about how he saw his world...flaws and all. Very good read
October 13, 2018
One word - charming. If you - like myself - like reading short stories before you fall asleep, this is just the book. But make sure to put yourself back into the Victorian age, while reading, because otherwise you might miss the beauty of the book, as you wil you hunt for what today is called political incorrectness but was perfectly normal in 1888. If you bear that in mind, you will not only enjoy the stories, but on top of it, learn so much more about the people and their thoughts,believes and behaviour during that time, than any history book can teach you.
July 29, 2025
Starts off as a juvenilia scrapbook that, if Kipling had started as novelist, would only have been published if he had achieved immortal fame and died, but, with some leaps ahead and more doublings back, develops into something more. When he manages pry himself away from endless romances and delusions of humor, there’s some very good stuff here, but these seem to be uphill battles.
The prose is good from the start, a clever, easy patter. It’s the writing that’s witty, not the scenarios. Kipling thinks they both are, which creates a continuous tension between the entertaining and the irritating. The few stories that drop even the pretense of a plot and just do atmosphere are the grimmer ones, and among the best. The bigger issues are the romances and all things romance-adjacent. He has reams to say about these, in at least half the stories, but none of it is interesting, insightful, or funny.
There’re also plenty of lengthy introductions to very short stories and whole stories that are vehicles for shallow opinions. But the progress over time really is there, and it’s always a good experience overall to read a few stories at a time. There are innumerable bits with a wonderful sense of voice and place, and some solid four-star stories. One of the last stories, “The Madness of Private Ortheris” ends with “I left, and on my way home thought a good deal over Ortheris … But I could not come to any conclusion of any kind whatever.” I just wish this had been his guiding light for them all.
The prose is good from the start, a clever, easy patter. It’s the writing that’s witty, not the scenarios. Kipling thinks they both are, which creates a continuous tension between the entertaining and the irritating. The few stories that drop even the pretense of a plot and just do atmosphere are the grimmer ones, and among the best. The bigger issues are the romances and all things romance-adjacent. He has reams to say about these, in at least half the stories, but none of it is interesting, insightful, or funny.
There’re also plenty of lengthy introductions to very short stories and whole stories that are vehicles for shallow opinions. But the progress over time really is there, and it’s always a good experience overall to read a few stories at a time. There are innumerable bits with a wonderful sense of voice and place, and some solid four-star stories. One of the last stories, “The Madness of Private Ortheris” ends with “I left, and on my way home thought a good deal over Ortheris … But I could not come to any conclusion of any kind whatever.” I just wish this had been his guiding light for them all.
October 15, 2019
Ich mochte die Geschichten sehr. Jeden Tag eine neue, bieten sie immer wieder einen Einblick in die Psyche und Moral dieser Zeit und darüber hinaus.
Unglaublich das Kipling zum Zeitpunkt des Schreibens erst 23 war. Obwohl man wohl als jüngster Literaturnobelpreisträger aller Zeiten früh anfangen muss.
Ich werde es sicher nochmal lesen.
Die Kritiken an diesem Werk sind für mich nicht nachvollziehbar. Natürlich kann man unsere heutigen ethischen Maßstäben nicht an Bücher aus einem anderen Jahrhundert anlegen. Vielmehr muss den historischen Kontext miteinbeziehen und gerade Kipling, finde ich, ist in diesem Werk keinen Vorwurf zu machen. Viel mehr ist er, als einer der Wenigen dieser Zeit, über bereit sich mit diesen Themen auseinander zu setzen und wurde dafür als "vulgär" beschimpft.
Unglaublich das Kipling zum Zeitpunkt des Schreibens erst 23 war. Obwohl man wohl als jüngster Literaturnobelpreisträger aller Zeiten früh anfangen muss.
Ich werde es sicher nochmal lesen.
Die Kritiken an diesem Werk sind für mich nicht nachvollziehbar. Natürlich kann man unsere heutigen ethischen Maßstäben nicht an Bücher aus einem anderen Jahrhundert anlegen. Vielmehr muss den historischen Kontext miteinbeziehen und gerade Kipling, finde ich, ist in diesem Werk keinen Vorwurf zu machen. Viel mehr ist er, als einer der Wenigen dieser Zeit, über bereit sich mit diesen Themen auseinander zu setzen und wurde dafür als "vulgär" beschimpft.
May 28, 2021
Всего в сборник вошло сорок рассказов, прежде напечатанных в периодических изданиях. Некоторые рассказы достойны отдельного повествования, вроде следующих: «Лиспет», «Покинутый», «Ворота Ста Печалей». Не следует искать предвзятого отношения, поскольку Киплинг не растекался мыслью по древу, он придерживался ограниченного количества печатных символов, так как должен был соблюдать определённый размер. Обычно читателю хватало десяти минут, чтобы ознакомиться с каждым из рассказов, иногда немного дольше, порою меньше. Каждое повествование касалось Индии, что следует из названия. Читатель должен знать, что основные события происходят в окрестностях города Шимла, выбранного в качестве летней столицы Британской Индии.
(c) Trounin
(c) Trounin
September 25, 2021
I've read these tales twice, once in the Wordsworth Classics edition 28 years ago, and again now in a Kindle collection of Kipling's works. In the Sahib Edition of Kipling's Works in 10 volumes, most of these stories are in Volume I which is called "Plain Tales from the Hills," but some are found in Volume II, "The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Stories."
The tales open a window upon life in British India among people of all classes, races, and religions in the late 19th century. The stories themselves are colorful but not profound; I recalled only "Tods' Amendment" from my first reading, and towards the end of my second reading I had largely forgotten the earlier stories.
The tales open a window upon life in British India among people of all classes, races, and religions in the late 19th century. The stories themselves are colorful but not profound; I recalled only "Tods' Amendment" from my first reading, and towards the end of my second reading I had largely forgotten the earlier stories.
February 2, 2025
3.5. El sentido común expuesto en estos cuentos es un mundo maravillosamente extraño.
March 19, 2022
I can’t believe ( and feel somewhat ashamed) that I have got even partway through this book. I can't finish it. I have the greatest respect for Kipling's other works, but this one, a compilation of short stories from periodicals set in the Raj, encapsulates the exceptionalism and endemic racism of that place and time and offends every woke nerve in my body. I am debating with myself over whether it is nobler in the mind to burn it, recycle it or donate it to a charity shop.
May 9, 2023
A meandering collection of very short stories, some good, some not. Kipling explores the life of the British colonial elite in this volume, but we see little of India or the rest of its peoples.
May 7, 2018
This is Kiplings first published set of short stories, a collection which featured in the newspaper he was editing in the 1880s , before he was famous and whilst making a name for himself .
The theme is British rule in India, some of the absurdities that get thrown up by the meeting of British chaps in charge of the ancient mass of Indian culture and population . Kipling himself seems to take different sides in different stories . Sometimes the tragedy of a Hill girl falling in love with a Sahib in “Lisbeth” , at other times the shenanigans of Simla’s social scene, These stories recall a lost world - the era of British rule in India and it is an interesting spectacle.
The stories are 3 or 4 pages long ; some are gripping but many are not ... it’s a long time ago and somehow it’s all a bit forgettable.
Having said all that I find the short short story a challenging form of literature. Every 4 or 5 pages you are starting out again with another set of characters and plot. So not my favourite literary form .
Think I will try one more set of Kipling stories from later in his life
The theme is British rule in India, some of the absurdities that get thrown up by the meeting of British chaps in charge of the ancient mass of Indian culture and population . Kipling himself seems to take different sides in different stories . Sometimes the tragedy of a Hill girl falling in love with a Sahib in “Lisbeth” , at other times the shenanigans of Simla’s social scene, These stories recall a lost world - the era of British rule in India and it is an interesting spectacle.
The stories are 3 or 4 pages long ; some are gripping but many are not ... it’s a long time ago and somehow it’s all a bit forgettable.
Having said all that I find the short short story a challenging form of literature. Every 4 or 5 pages you are starting out again with another set of characters and plot. So not my favourite literary form .
Think I will try one more set of Kipling stories from later in his life
Displaying 1 - 30 of 192 reviews