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The Phantom Rickshaw
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This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
254 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1888
7 people are currently reading
104 people want to read
About the author
Rudyard Kipling
7,340 books3,754 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."
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
March 16, 2019
This is a book that I could recommend to just about anyone who has school aged children. There's no graphic violence. There's no real swearing. There's nothing that would offend the modern parent. If you have young kids, buy this book and put it into their hands. They'll thank you later.
May 16, 2020
A "fantasztikus" jelző jelentése elég nehezen írható körül, most nem is mennék bele. A fantasy, a sci-fi, a horror Kipling idejében, bár létezett, nevet még nem kapott, és nem is különültek el élesen sem egymástól, sem a (szintén nehezen definiálható) gótikus irodalomtól. És ez így pont jó. Kiplingnek ezeket az írásait éppen ez a képlékenység teszi emlékezetessé. Az, hogy az elején még nem tudhatja az ember, természetfölötti erők játszanak vele, vagy egy nagyon is evilági poén változtatja hétköznapivá az eseményeket, esetleg egyszerre, egymásba játszatva jelentkezik a racionális és az irracionális, aztán krimi lesz belőle a végén.
Továbbiak a blogon:
https://gyujtogeto-alkoto.blog.hu/202...
Továbbiak a blogon:
https://gyujtogeto-alkoto.blog.hu/202...
January 2, 2020
Part of Kipling's vast oeuvre are ghost stories and descriptions of the supernatural set in colonial India that have been described as belonging to the sub-genre of imperial Gothic. Though there are more, the five famous stories in this collection are routinely compiled as a single volume of this sub-genre as far as Kipling is concerned.
'The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes' is indeed one of the strangest stories that I have read. But I guess what makes it - and much else of Kipling - so very compelling for someone like me are several different reasons. First, I am fascinated by how the lead character is unabashedly and quite hatefully the pompous sahib who considers himself superior to natives in every way and how common imperialist tropes of exotic, unknowable, superstitious, cunning and untrustworthy natives characterize the stories. At the same, time Kipling is a great story-teller with an eye for detail and particular talent in describing topography and creating a sense of the sinister (the amphitheater shaped steep depression where the undead are trapped and dwell and that is blocked off on the only open side by quicksand is a truly strange imagining). And finally, his stories will always remain unique as through a foreign and eventually nativized eye they look at landscapes and people that I know, love and feel connected to as a local - the setting for this story is the Punjabi countryside along the Sutlej river. There is a strange thrill in looking at the same through a set of alien and yet also native eyes.
'The Phantom Rickshaw' describes the travails of a Bengal Civilian hounded by the rickshaw riding ghost of the woman he spurned, through the rain-swept and pine-lined streets of late 19th century colonial Simla. Simla of course appears often in Kipling's stories - most particularly in the volume 'Plain Tales from the Hills' - and brings to life the lives of the Sahibs and Mem Sahibs at rest and leisure, recreating little Englands in hill-stations dotted all over India.
'The Finest Story in the World' is about a young clerk with literary aspirations but no talent who stumbles upon the idea of a great story. The narrator discover that the story is not an imagining or inspiration but in fact fragmented but very real memories from fascinating previous lives - as a Greek galley-slave, as a Viking explorer, and more, which he is very keen to excavate from a subject who is lost instead in reading Longfellow and likely any time to fall in love which would close forever the passageway to those memories.
'The Man who would be King' is also part of the collection as well as an often independently published novella and has been reviewed separately by me at https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
'My Own True Ghost Story' provides a taxonomy of the various kinds of ghosts in India; mentions specific hauntings at Simla, Mussoorie, Dalhousie, Lahore, Murree, Mian Mir, Peshawar, and Allahabad; a description of dilapidated and dingy and often haunted dak-bungalows on the GT Road; and, an account of a suspicious and seemingly ghostly billiard game at one such dak-bungalow on a stormy night. Quite enjoyable.
'The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes' is indeed one of the strangest stories that I have read. But I guess what makes it - and much else of Kipling - so very compelling for someone like me are several different reasons. First, I am fascinated by how the lead character is unabashedly and quite hatefully the pompous sahib who considers himself superior to natives in every way and how common imperialist tropes of exotic, unknowable, superstitious, cunning and untrustworthy natives characterize the stories. At the same, time Kipling is a great story-teller with an eye for detail and particular talent in describing topography and creating a sense of the sinister (the amphitheater shaped steep depression where the undead are trapped and dwell and that is blocked off on the only open side by quicksand is a truly strange imagining). And finally, his stories will always remain unique as through a foreign and eventually nativized eye they look at landscapes and people that I know, love and feel connected to as a local - the setting for this story is the Punjabi countryside along the Sutlej river. There is a strange thrill in looking at the same through a set of alien and yet also native eyes.
'The Phantom Rickshaw' describes the travails of a Bengal Civilian hounded by the rickshaw riding ghost of the woman he spurned, through the rain-swept and pine-lined streets of late 19th century colonial Simla. Simla of course appears often in Kipling's stories - most particularly in the volume 'Plain Tales from the Hills' - and brings to life the lives of the Sahibs and Mem Sahibs at rest and leisure, recreating little Englands in hill-stations dotted all over India.
'The Finest Story in the World' is about a young clerk with literary aspirations but no talent who stumbles upon the idea of a great story. The narrator discover that the story is not an imagining or inspiration but in fact fragmented but very real memories from fascinating previous lives - as a Greek galley-slave, as a Viking explorer, and more, which he is very keen to excavate from a subject who is lost instead in reading Longfellow and likely any time to fall in love which would close forever the passageway to those memories.
'The Man who would be King' is also part of the collection as well as an often independently published novella and has been reviewed separately by me at https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
'My Own True Ghost Story' provides a taxonomy of the various kinds of ghosts in India; mentions specific hauntings at Simla, Mussoorie, Dalhousie, Lahore, Murree, Mian Mir, Peshawar, and Allahabad; a description of dilapidated and dingy and often haunted dak-bungalows on the GT Road; and, an account of a suspicious and seemingly ghostly billiard game at one such dak-bungalow on a stormy night. Quite enjoyable.
February 21, 2022
Рассказ «Рикша-призрак» более банален, нежели хотелось бы. Читателю сообщалось о человеке, которому мерещилась призрачная повозка. Он мог видеть её отчётливо, но в тот момент другие не могли эту повозку разглядеть. Так легко сойти за безумца, если просить подтвердить то, будто видишь такое, чего более никто не видит. Читатель понимал, человек был подлинно из помешавшихся, так как в той повозке сидела девушка, к смерти которой главный герой повествования считал себя причастным. Тут бы впору говорить, якобы главного героя мучит совесть, а то и вовсе до него снизошли эринии, возжаждавшие нести месть за содеянное зло. Дабы уразуметь помешательство в уме, сделать такое заключение нужно самостоятельно. Да в художественной литературе писателю гораздо приятнее описывать мучения человека, нежели после нескольких абзацев ставить точку в рассказе. Вскоре главного героя объявят сумасшедшим, ссылаясь на излишне частые галлюцинации. Что сделает Киплинг? Он подведёт читателя к тому, словно главный герой не совсем сумасшедший, он просто эпилептик. Тогда для эпилепсии считалось характерным видеть несуществующее. Для придания повествованию интереса, Редьярд поставит главного героя перед необходимостью решить, насколько он способен сознаться в галлюцинациях, либо выбрать другой путь в виде заболевания — более для него лучший. Как бы не поступил главный герой рассказа «Рикша-призрак», от видений он всё равно не избавится. Читатель вполне логично заключит, тут скорее дело в совести, а не в чём-то другом.
(c) Trounin
(c) Trounin
June 6, 2023
Fun little ghost story. Not the best, not the worst. Just pretty standard.
August 12, 2022
“There was a muffled report, a blinding smother of dust just in front of us, a crack, the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of the cliff-side—pines, undergrowth, and all—slid down into the road below, completely blocking it up. The uprooted trees swayed and tottered for a moment like drunken giants in the gloom, and then fell prone among their fellows with a thunderous crash.”
[image error]
[Les deux carrosses (1707) by Claude Gillot. This painting has nothing to do with Kipling’s story aside from providing an amusing look at what a rickshaw is].
3.5 out of 5 stars. “The Phantom ‘Rickshaw” is a novelette* by Rudyard Kipling that was first published in his story collection The Phantom 'Rickshaw & other Eerie Tales. I read it because it is featured in The Literature of Lovecraft, Vol. 1. The American author H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) wrote about Kipling in the 9th chapter of his literary essay Supernatural Horror in Literature,
Lovecraft is most enthusiastic about “The Mark of the Beast,” but the editors at HPLHS chose “The Phantom ’Rickshaw” as being most emblematic of Kipling’s forays into supernatural horror. I found it to be a strong ghost story. The plot is predictable, but Kipling is skilled enough of a writer to keep things interesting and appropriately eerie. I like how much he left up to the readers’ imagination . For example, when the ghost speaks with our protagonist towards the end, we never find out what she stated. It leaves the reader wondering what awful thing that the man did to her life. My biggest complaint about the story is that Rickshaws are so silly looking that it is difficult to take even a ghostly one very seriously.
Title: “The Phantom Rickshaw”
Author: Rudyard Kipling
Dates: 1888
Genre: Fiction - Novelette*, horror
Word count: 8,802 words
Date(s) read: 8/8/22-8/9/22
Reading journal entry #223 in 2022
Link to the story: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2806/...
Link to Lovecraft’s essay: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/...
Sources:
Fifer, C., & Lackey, C. (2018, August 7. Episode 219 - The Phantom Rickshaw. H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast https://www.hppodcraft.com/list/2014/...
Lovecraft, H. P., & Joshi, S. T. (2012). The annotated supernatural horror in literature (second edition). Hippocampus Press. https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/... (Original work published 1927)
Kipling, R. (2021). The phantom rickshaw. In H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society (Ed.), The literature of Lovecraft, vol. 1.. (S. Branney, Narr.; A. Leman, Narr.) [Audiobook]. HPLHS. https://www.hplhs.org/lol.php (Original work published 1888)
Link to the image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
The contents of The Literature of H.P. Lovecraft, Volume 1 are:
"The Adventure of the German Student" by Washington Irving
"The Avenger of Perdóndaris" by Lord Dunsany
"The Bad Lands" by John Metcalfe
"The Black Stone" by Robert E. Howard
The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" by William Hope Hodgson
"Count Magnus" by M.R. James
"The Dead Valley" by Ralph Adams Cram
"The Death Mask" by Henrietta Everett
"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Ghost of Fear" by H.G. Wells (also called “The Red Room”)
"The Ghostly Kiss" by Lafcadio Hearn
"The Horla" by Guy de Maupassant
"The House and the Brain" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
"The House of Sounds" by Matthew Phipps Shiel
"Idle Days on the Yann" by Lord Dunsany
"Lot #249" by Arthur Conan Doyle
"The Man-Wolf" by Erckmann-Chatrian
"The Middle Toe of the Right Foot" by Ambrose Bierce
"The Minister's Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
"The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs
"One of Cleopatra's Nights" by Théophile Gautier
"The Phantom Rickshaw" by Rudyard Kipling
The Place Called Dagon by Herbert Gorman
"Seaton's Aunt" by Walter de la Mare
"The Shadows on the Wall" by Mary E. Wilkins
"A Shop in Go-By Street" by Lord Dunsany
"The Signal-Man" by Charles Dickens
"Skule Skerry" by John Buchan
"The Spider" by Hanns Heinz Ewers
"The Story of a Panic" by E.M. Forster
"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson
"The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" by Clark Ashton Smith
"The Tapestried Chamber" by Sir Walter Scott
"The Upper Berth" by F. Marion Crawford
"The Vampyre" by John Polidori
"The Venus of Ille" by Prosper Mérimée
"The Were Wolf" by Clemence Housman
"What Was It?" by Fitz-James O'Brien
"The White People" by Arthur Machen
"The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains" by Frederick Marryat
"The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood
"The Yellow Sign" by Robert W. Chambers
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
If you want to hear the stories in the order in which they were written, here's a guide.
The Vampyre (1819)
The Adventure of the German Student (1824)
The Tapestried Chamber (1828)
The Minister's Black Veil (1836)
The Venus of Ille (1837)
The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains (1839)
The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)
What Was It? (1859)
The House and the Brain (1859)
The Signal-Man (1866)
The Man-Wolf (1876)
The Ghostly Kiss (1880)
One of Cleopatra's Nights (1882)
The Upper Berth (1886)
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
The Horla (1887)
The Phantom Rickshaw (1888)
The Middle Toe of the Right Foot (1891)
Lot #249 (1892)
The Yellow Wallpaper (1892)
The Ghost of Fear (1894) - also called The Red Room
The Yellow Sign (1895)
The Dead Valley (1895)
The Were-Wolf (1896)
The Monkey's Paw (1902)
The Shadows on the Wall (1903)
Count Magnus (1904)
The White People (1904)
The Willows (1907)
The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" (1907)
Idle Days on the Yann (1910)
The Story of a Panic (1911)
The House of Sounds (1911)
A Shop in Go-By Street (1912)
The Avenger of Perdóndaris (1912)
The Spider (1915)
The Death Mask (1920)
The Bad Lands (1920)
Seaton's Aunt (1922)
The Place Called Dagon (1927)
Skule Skerry (1928)
The Tale of Satampra Zeiros (1929)
The Black Stone (1931)
[image error]
[Les deux carrosses (1707) by Claude Gillot. This painting has nothing to do with Kipling’s story aside from providing an amusing look at what a rickshaw is].
3.5 out of 5 stars. “The Phantom ‘Rickshaw” is a novelette* by Rudyard Kipling that was first published in his story collection The Phantom 'Rickshaw & other Eerie Tales. I read it because it is featured in The Literature of Lovecraft, Vol. 1. The American author H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) wrote about Kipling in the 9th chapter of his literary essay Supernatural Horror in Literature,
Recent British literature [as of the 1920s and 1930s], besides including the three or four greatest fantaisistes of the present age, has been gratifyingly fertile in the element of the weird. Rudyard Kipling has often approached it; and has, despite the omnipresent mannerisms, handled it with indubitable mastery in such tales as “The Phantom ’Rickshaw”, “‘The Finest Story in the World’”, “The Recrudescence of Imray”, and “The Mark of the Beast”.
Lovecraft is most enthusiastic about “The Mark of the Beast,” but the editors at HPLHS chose “The Phantom ’Rickshaw” as being most emblematic of Kipling’s forays into supernatural horror. I found it to be a strong ghost story. The plot is predictable, but Kipling is skilled enough of a writer to keep things interesting and appropriately eerie. I like how much he left up to the readers’ imagination . For example, when the ghost speaks with our protagonist towards the end, we never find out what she stated. It leaves the reader wondering what awful thing that the man did to her life. My biggest complaint about the story is that Rickshaws are so silly looking that it is difficult to take even a ghostly one very seriously.
Title: “The Phantom Rickshaw”
Author: Rudyard Kipling
Dates: 1888
Genre: Fiction - Novelette*, horror
Word count: 8,802 words
Date(s) read: 8/8/22-8/9/22
Reading journal entry #223 in 2022
Link to the story: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2806/...
Link to Lovecraft’s essay: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/...
Sources:
Fifer, C., & Lackey, C. (2018, August 7. Episode 219 - The Phantom Rickshaw. H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast https://www.hppodcraft.com/list/2014/...
Lovecraft, H. P., & Joshi, S. T. (2012). The annotated supernatural horror in literature (second edition). Hippocampus Press. https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/... (Original work published 1927)
Kipling, R. (2021). The phantom rickshaw. In H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society (Ed.), The literature of Lovecraft, vol. 1.. (S. Branney, Narr.; A. Leman, Narr.) [Audiobook]. HPLHS. https://www.hplhs.org/lol.php (Original work published 1888)
Link to the image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
The contents of The Literature of H.P. Lovecraft, Volume 1 are:
"The Avenger of Perdóndaris" by Lord Dunsany
"The Bad Lands" by John Metcalfe
"The Black Stone" by Robert E. Howard
The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" by William Hope Hodgson
"Count Magnus" by M.R. James
"The Dead Valley" by Ralph Adams Cram
"The Death Mask" by Henrietta Everett
"The Ghost of Fear" by H.G. Wells (also called “The Red Room”)
"The House of Sounds" by Matthew Phipps Shiel
"Idle Days on the Yann" by Lord Dunsany
"Lot #249" by Arthur Conan Doyle
"The Middle Toe of the Right Foot" by Ambrose Bierce
"The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs
The Place Called Dagon by Herbert Gorman
"Seaton's Aunt" by Walter de la Mare
"The Shadows on the Wall" by Mary E. Wilkins
"A Shop in Go-By Street" by Lord Dunsany
"Skule Skerry" by John Buchan
"The Spider" by Hanns Heinz Ewers
"The Story of a Panic" by E.M. Forster
"The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" by Clark Ashton Smith
"The Were Wolf" by Clemence Housman
"The White People" by Arthur Machen
"The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood
"The Yellow Sign" by Robert W. Chambers
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
If you want to hear the stories in the order in which they were written, here's a guide.
The Adventure of the German Student (1824)
The Tapestried Chamber (1828)
The Minister's Black Veil (1836)
The Venus of Ille (1837)
The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains (1839)
The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)
What Was It? (1859)
The House and the Brain (1859)
The Signal-Man (1866)
The Man-Wolf (1876)
The Ghostly Kiss (1880)
One of Cleopatra's Nights (1882)
The Upper Berth (1886)
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
The Horla (1887)
The Phantom Rickshaw (1888)
The Middle Toe of the Right Foot (1891)
Lot #249 (1892)
The Yellow Wallpaper (1892)
The Ghost of Fear (1894) - also called The Red Room
The Yellow Sign (1895)
The Dead Valley (1895)
The Were-Wolf (1896)
The Monkey's Paw (1902)
The Shadows on the Wall (1903)
Count Magnus (1904)
The White People (1904)
The Willows (1907)
The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" (1907)
Idle Days on the Yann (1910)
The Story of a Panic (1911)
The House of Sounds (1911)
A Shop in Go-By Street (1912)
The Avenger of Perdóndaris (1912)
The Spider (1915)
The Death Mask (1920)
The Bad Lands (1920)
Seaton's Aunt (1922)
The Place Called Dagon (1927)
Skule Skerry (1928)
The Tale of Satampra Zeiros (1929)
The Black Stone (1931)
*The difference between a short story, novelette, novella, and a novel: https://owlcation.com/humanities/Diff...
Vignette, prose poem, flash fiction: 53 - 1,000 words
Short Stories: 1,000 - 7,500
Novelettes: 7,500 - 17,000
Novellas: 17,000 - 40,000
Novels: 40,000 + words
January 18, 2018
A truly phenomenal book to read, falls perfectly in the horror genre, somewhere between that of Bram Stoker and Edgar Allen Poe. The story flowed wonderfully and beautifully descriptive.
Like with many other books by similar authors of the time, issues and concerns regarding addiction are raised. Issues of drinking in the wider social structure, medical concerns surrounding drinking, palpitations, deuterium tremors and such for were of grave concern. Kipling unlike other authors goes further by going on, talking and raises awareness of hospitals, sanitariums and mental institutions as a way to dealing with alcoholism. For Kipling in his other issue he saw going hand in hand with alcoholism (but not raised in this book) was that of drug addiction (opium).
Like with many other books by similar authors of the time, issues and concerns regarding addiction are raised. Issues of drinking in the wider social structure, medical concerns surrounding drinking, palpitations, deuterium tremors and such for were of grave concern. Kipling unlike other authors goes further by going on, talking and raises awareness of hospitals, sanitariums and mental institutions as a way to dealing with alcoholism. For Kipling in his other issue he saw going hand in hand with alcoholism (but not raised in this book) was that of drug addiction (opium).
April 14, 2018
John Pansy is dying. His doctor blames it on overwork, but he says he sees the ghost of a woman he wronged. He writes his story down:
October 31, 2025
Kipling’s “The Phantom Rickshaw” is a short horror story with several ghostly appearances only seen by a young man. This is a truly tragic story that tests one’s sanity in trying to perceive what is reality verses the other side. This story shows that cruelty and lack of caring for another human being that is not liked, will haunt the conscience until repentance for the sins to another.
Story in short- Jack has an affair with a married woman who loves him more than anything, and Jack’s wish to be rid of her.
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Jack finds Agnes so deeply in love with him, though she is married. Jack had wanted the affair but soon was bored and was looking to get away and marry a young girl. Jack refuses to talk to Agnes and see her again. Agnes would follow him in her rickshaw which was well manned and had taken a wrong turn causing her death and her voice calls out to him. Kitty is engaged to Jack and are happy until it, until the ghost of Agnes starts to work on his sanity. Jack tells his story and his seeing the rickshaw which only he sees which he cannot break away from even though Kitty who he had finally told her about his affair with Agnes. Kitty refuses to listen to him and breaks off with him and is quite cruel. She is seen with other admirers and refuses to acknowledge Jack. He is heart broken but his link to the dead Agnes and the rickshaw becomes an obsession he cannot get rid of and he starts to await. His health is drained and the doctor who he thought cured him, is unable to save his patient. Jack having died three years ago, the doctor tells a little about his patient’s written story. The doctor sees that Jack is a blackguard but yet he is drawn to his troubles. The doctor sees how Kitty is a virago who would have been trouble if crossed. Jack tries to seek forgiveness and understanding from the dead Agnes. Jack looks forward to death for being released but not factoring what faces the hereafter.
Story in short- Jack has an affair with a married woman who loves him more than anything, and Jack’s wish to be rid of her.
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Jack finds Agnes so deeply in love with him, though she is married. Jack had wanted the affair but soon was bored and was looking to get away and marry a young girl. Jack refuses to talk to Agnes and see her again. Agnes would follow him in her rickshaw which was well manned and had taken a wrong turn causing her death and her voice calls out to him. Kitty is engaged to Jack and are happy until it, until the ghost of Agnes starts to work on his sanity. Jack tells his story and his seeing the rickshaw which only he sees which he cannot break away from even though Kitty who he had finally told her about his affair with Agnes. Kitty refuses to listen to him and breaks off with him and is quite cruel. She is seen with other admirers and refuses to acknowledge Jack. He is heart broken but his link to the dead Agnes and the rickshaw becomes an obsession he cannot get rid of and he starts to await. His health is drained and the doctor who he thought cured him, is unable to save his patient. Jack having died three years ago, the doctor tells a little about his patient’s written story. The doctor sees that Jack is a blackguard but yet he is drawn to his troubles. The doctor sees how Kitty is a virago who would have been trouble if crossed. Jack tries to seek forgiveness and understanding from the dead Agnes. Jack looks forward to death for being released but not factoring what faces the hereafter.
October 13, 2022
"Shall I die in my bed decently and as an English gentleman should die; or, in one last walk on the Mall, will my soul be wrenched from me to take its place for ever and ever by the side of that ghastly phantasm? Shall I return to my old lost allegiance in the next world, or shall I meet Agnes loathing her and bound to her side through all eternity? Shall we two hover over the scene of our lives till the end of Time? As the day of my death draws nearer, the intense horror that all living flesh feels towards escaped spirits from beyond the grave grows more and more powerful. It is an awful thing to go down quick among the dead with scarcely one-half of your life completed. It is a thousand times more awful to wait as I do in your midst, for I know not what unimaginable terror."
December 22, 2021
"...Men occasionally break down and become as mixed as the metaphors in this sentence."
This is how Kipling initiates a tale that can be read as a perfect ghost story, but only from the perspective of its unreliable narrator. Seen through the latter's eyes, the events of the narrative are indeed among the most haunting in English literature; a disappointing relationship, a new passion, a dead mistress, and an uncanny resurrection are hard to match, and harder still to read without a certain feeling of awe.
The latter emotion, however, is dissipated by means of a dozen hints thrown here and there by the author in order to clarify the mystery, and bring the nightmarish visions of John Pansay into the realistic realm of material beings and logical explanations.
"He was in a high fever while he was writing, and the blood-and-thunder Magazine diction he adopted did not calm him"
Similar are the assertions in this vein, which communicate in a subtle manner the unreliability of Pansay, and attribute the extraordinariness of his narrative to a medical condition and a mental instability. After all, there is nothing truly astonishing about the deliriums of fever; under its hold, men could imagine and believe anything.
"Two months afterward he was reported fit for duty, but, in spite of the fact that he was urgently needed to help an undermanned Commission stagger through a deficit, he preferred to die;"
This sarcastic statement strips naked the facts of the present case, and even condemns the social and medical orders of the day, which refused to regard mental illness as a medical condition. Pansay was reported fit for duty simply because he was needed. The state of his physical health was favorable; that of his mind was neglected. It is on account of such neglect that he had perished. In fact, the tale is not as concerned with Pansay's moral compass as it is with his community's prejudice. It is a personal casebook of a patient who had succumbed under the weight of a mental illness that was shunned and ignored by his peers.
This is how Kipling initiates a tale that can be read as a perfect ghost story, but only from the perspective of its unreliable narrator. Seen through the latter's eyes, the events of the narrative are indeed among the most haunting in English literature; a disappointing relationship, a new passion, a dead mistress, and an uncanny resurrection are hard to match, and harder still to read without a certain feeling of awe.
The latter emotion, however, is dissipated by means of a dozen hints thrown here and there by the author in order to clarify the mystery, and bring the nightmarish visions of John Pansay into the realistic realm of material beings and logical explanations.
"He was in a high fever while he was writing, and the blood-and-thunder Magazine diction he adopted did not calm him"
Similar are the assertions in this vein, which communicate in a subtle manner the unreliability of Pansay, and attribute the extraordinariness of his narrative to a medical condition and a mental instability. After all, there is nothing truly astonishing about the deliriums of fever; under its hold, men could imagine and believe anything.
"Two months afterward he was reported fit for duty, but, in spite of the fact that he was urgently needed to help an undermanned Commission stagger through a deficit, he preferred to die;"
This sarcastic statement strips naked the facts of the present case, and even condemns the social and medical orders of the day, which refused to regard mental illness as a medical condition. Pansay was reported fit for duty simply because he was needed. The state of his physical health was favorable; that of his mind was neglected. It is on account of such neglect that he had perished. In fact, the tale is not as concerned with Pansay's moral compass as it is with his community's prejudice. It is a personal casebook of a patient who had succumbed under the weight of a mental illness that was shunned and ignored by his peers.
June 3, 2022
মির্চির হররে মীরের গলা তার যেকোন পার্ফম্যান্সকে সবসময় ছাড়িয়ে যায়। নেহাত সাধারণ এই গল্পটাও শরীরে শীষ কাটে!
পড়লে কেমন লাগত জানি না, কিন্তু অডিওবুকটা মোর দ্যান রেকমেন্ডেড!
" সব ঠিক হয়ে যাবে, জ্যাক! আমাকে একটু সময় দাও!!"
হা হা হা......
পড়লে কেমন লাগত জানি না, কিন্তু অডিওবুকটা মোর দ্যান রেকমেন্ডেড!
" সব ঠিক হয়ে যাবে, জ্যাক! আমাকে একটু সময় দাও!!"
হা হা হা......
August 10, 2023
Tiene una forma de escribir que te engancha enseguida a la historia, tan bien hilado que al acabarlo me tuve que releer las 2-3 primeras páginas para saber de dónde venía todo esto. Como se dice, lo bueno si breve, dos veces bueno.
November 8, 2025
I don’t much care for ghost stories, so I wasn’t surprised to find the first two stories severely lacking…but they got better after that? “The Recrudescence of Imray” is impeccably atmospheric. Also I am forever obsessed with the way Kipling writes.
April 15, 2026
The least scary part of this story is the spooky ghost. The protagonist's misogyny and the glimpses the story provides of the imperialist mindset are far more terrifying. Also scary is how long Kipling manages to drag this story out...
September 13, 2018
"And like the Prince in Tennyson’s poem, 'I seemed to move amid a world of ghosts.'”
November 2, 2018
This is an interesting short story, a good combination of psychological fiction and the horror genre, but you couldn't say, with certainty, that it belongs to one or the other.
July 21, 2021
Got that perfect adrenaline rush!
August 26, 2021
A man is driven comedicly insane by the constant reappearance of a recently dead nuisance of a former lover and her rickshaw much to the chagrin of his betrothed.
December 27, 2021
Es una cosa terrible hundirse rápidamente entre los muertos cuando apenas se ha completado una mitad de la vida.
Read
February 23, 2022for class
July 26, 2022
A man loses his mind from the haunting memory of a woman.
May 22, 2023
From 1885, another reviewer called this 'imperial gothic.'. Well, yes. Solid horror story.
November 13, 2023
I listened to this as part of the Classic Tales of Horror - 500+ Stories. It was very enjoyable 2023
April 6, 2024
I don't like ghost stories but this is more of a cautionary tale
June 2, 2024
Strange is pretty much the only way I can think to describe this one.
August 2, 2024
Such a brief read that despite there being a message and moral to the story, the story ending still felt unfinished and abrupt.
March 25, 2025
Read for uni - enjoyable but questionable characters, same as the others.
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