Stalky & Co

by Rudyard Kipling

Kipling portrays school as the first stage of a much larger game, a pattern maker for the experiences of life. Implied throughout the book is the question 'What happened to the fifteen-year boys, and how did the lessons they learned at school apply to the world of warfare and imperial government?' These stories are based on Kipling's own schooling, the United Services College at Westward Ho! in Devon.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Short Stories, Young Adult, British Literature, School Stories, Childrens

212 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1897

About the author

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

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

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

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

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

Reviews

[Mike Mason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some critical review comments from the Kipling Society website.

‘An unpleasant book about unpleasant boys at an unpleasant school’

`little beasts’

`a more odious picture of school life can seldom have been drawn’

Read this book to my Dad over a few weeks. It was one of his favourites. I have to say I also enjoyed it.

Boys Own type story of three boys at a Boarding School in Devon in the 1880’s as Afghan Wars still in play. It is essentially a number of short stories packaged together. These are a group of boys you don’t mess with as they will always get the better of their elders.

Stalky is the leader. Not really interested in going into the Army (as the Schools main aim for boys) but is a real leader and will be a hero later. Beetle is the lad with glasses who will not go into the Forces. He is actually Kipling himself. M’Turk the literary one.

Each story has the three pitting their wits against authority. Putting a dead cat under a dormitory floor or getting King (one of the masters) pelted by stones after Stalky uses a catapult on ‘rabbits eggs.’ This will be a ruse he uses later against two warring Afghan tribes.

Sad interludes as we hear that other characters from the school have perished in Afghanistan or India. Kipling is a superb writer. I can see the criticism of the book and at times I felt it myself. But it is an uplifting work. A book of its time that is really timeless.

I re-read Kim a few years back. Another of my Dad’s favourites. Will be starting this one again shortly.

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

“An Unpleasant book about unpleasant boys at an unpleasant school” (Cambridge History of English Literature 1942).
There is a hoary old joke which goes: Question: Do you like Kipling. Answer: I don’t know I’ve never kippled.
Stalky and Co is a collection of stories set in an English public school in the 1870s/80s revolving around three boys; Stalky, Beetle (Kipling himself) and M’Turk. It’s actually based on the school that Kipling attended, the United Services College in Devon. It was a school designed for those intended for the army and was often a stepping stone to Sandhurst. Public School stories were a popular genre in late Victorian times, stemming largely from Tom Brown’s Schooldays. There is a good deal of slang in the stories and this can take a little getting used to. It is the usual battle between the boys (aged about fifteen to sixteen) and the masters with plenty of internecine rivalry. The boys are split into houses and there is also plenty of bullying of smaller boys (or fags as they are known). As Edmund Wilson says:
“A hair-raising picture of the sadism of the English public school system”
It is clear that the education and experience of school is designed to breed the officers and civil servants of the Empire. Indeed the last chapter skips forward to find many of the main characters of the book out in India or Afghanistan, merrily killing and being killed for the Empire and ruling the “natives”. As H G Wells said:
"In this we have the key to the ugliest, most retrogressive, and finally fatal idea of modern imperialism; the idea of a tacit conspiracy between the law and illegal violence."
It’s pretty much what you would expect from the arch imperialist Kipling, but it has been influential. Indeed there are shades of Harry Potter (obviously no girls or magic), but it is another middle class public school story.

[Elena · Rating 5 out of 5]

People have tried to talk me out of liking this book since before I actually read it. There's something less than subtly discouraging about opening your book on a quote by a George Sampson that says "an unpleasant book about unpleasant boys at an unpleasant school". But I don't know who George Sampson was and, after looking it up on the internet, it's this guy who shows up:



Of course, if I were to read the fifth line of the introduction I would find that Wells "condemns the heroes as self-righteous bullies", and I do know who Wells is, but let's be honest. I never made it that far into the introduction.

Stalky, Beetle and M'Turk have so much fun being unpleasant that I'm on their side as a reader, if not as a person. They're bullies, but they're fun bullies, and brilliant ones, and they enjoy playing with language and messing with people just as much. I don't mind that they're mean. Of course, there's this scene.

"He says he doesn't know anything about bullyin'. Haven't we taught you a lot?"
"Yes-yes!"
"He says we've taught him a lot. Aren't you grateful?"
"Yes!"
"He says he's grateful"

Beatings happened in that sort of school. This one is very light-humoured, and it's up to us if we give it a pass or place its heroes in the abusive jerks category. As an adult, I might do just that, but as a kid, well, I was fine with it. In the one that Saki writes in the Unbearable Bassington, the one doing the flogging enjoyed it. Stalky & Co are ruthless but they're not sadists. And what's there not to like about a whole story translating Horace? Nothing, that's what.

It's just that... When King complains about the smells that come from the other class, Paddy comments, because he remembers last term's Ode:

"Non hoc semper erit liminis aut aquae caelestis patiens latus."
"This side will not always be patient of rain and waiting on the threshold".

King, the teacher, retorts:

"And you remembered? The same head that minted probrosis as a verb! Vernon, you are an enigma."

When your class has been called names for similar reasons for many years, that cracks you up.

And there's french, too:

‘Shut up! Did you ever know your Uncle Stalky get you into a mess yet?’ Like many other leaders, Stalky did not dwell on past defeats.
The cheroot burned with sputterings of saltpetre. They smoked it gingerly, each passing to the other between closed forefinger and thumb.
‘Good job we hadn’t one apiece, ain’t it?’ said Stalky, shivering through set teeth. To prove his words he immediately laid all before them, and they followed his example. . . .
‘I told you,’ moaned Beetle, sweating clammy drops. ‘Oh, Stalky, you are a fool!’
‘Je cat, tu cat, il cat. Nous cattons!’ M‘Turk handed up his contribution and lay hopelessly on the cold iron.

And there's the english:

"Come to my arms, my beamish boy!" carolled M'Turk, and they fell into each other's arms dancing. "Oh, frabjous day! Calloo, callay!"

Through the Looking Glass. They're total fanboys.

I feel obliged to talk about imperialism because of Kipling:

He shook it before them- a large calico Union Jack, staring in all three colours, and waited for the thunder of applause that should crown his effort.
They looked in silence. They had certainly seen the thing before- but [...]. What, in the name of everything caddish, was he driving at, who waved that horror before their eyes? Happy thought! Perhaps he was drunk.

He is an imperialist, certainly, but he's not intolerably sugary about it.

I understand that what I have written in praise is also proof that the book is completely outdated. But it'll be more accurate to say that it has lost its public. It's definitely a book for kids, as I was when I read it, there is no innuendo, and the games are the sort that you enjoy as a teen, when lots of things are done for not other reason than to tap into new energy. But it also requires that you have an understanding of where these students were headed, that this was an empire building its future; and you have to like mocking forgotten books and dead languages.

[Razvan Banciu · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about youngsters, but NOT a book for youngsters, mainly for its philosophy, too deep for someone under at least 40 years.
And one big question: who is changing? People, times or perhaps both of them? That's because one hundred (and more in fact) years ago we had schools only for the rich ones, corporal punishment and a plethora of Latin quotes. Today there are more chances for the poorer, plenty of social media, I-phones and drugs. A hard choice, indeed...

[Gary Inbinder · Rating 4 out of 5]

A “ripping yarn” of high jinks among a small band of British “bad boys” in a late Victorian boarding school, based upon the military preparatory school Kipling attended. Stalky and Co.’s trespasses include smoking out of bounds; taking pot shots at small animals; pranking the hated house masters; mocking the authority of sixth form prefects; sabotaging exams. Their one "good deed", prompted by the chaplain, consists of stopping a couple of full-grown bullies from tormenting a new boy. However, their chosen method, giving the bullies a taste of their own medicine, is brutal in the extreme.

Stalky and his pals work stealthily, taking full advantage of their enemy’s weaknesses. They play by their own rules; they hate cricket, but they “play up. And play the game!” in football when the college honor is on the line. Their pranks display a talent for psychological operations. They “metagrobolize” their adversaries. Moreover, the headmaster recognizes their peculiar qualities, even when administering the occasional caning, which of course they take like men.

The young gentlemen of Stalky & Co. exhibit qualities that will serve them well in Her Majesty’s service, and this is borne out in the final old boy’s reunion chapter.

Caveat: The novel is loaded with Victorian slang, especially of the public-school and military variety, and a few jokes in college Latin. There are also several references to the culture and politics of the time ca. 1880-1895. An edition with footnotes and a glossary would be helpful.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in July 2001.

Few of Kipling's fictional stories contain much of an autobiographical element, despite his frequent use of the first person. In this collection of stories, the school and some of the characters are based on his own experiences; Beetle, in particular, is a self portrait.

The Devon boarding school portrayed in the book is basically a factory for producing future officers of the British army to serve in the colonies, and is by modern standards a violent place, with bullying and savage corporal punishment. Yet Kipling's evident nostalgia for his time at the school infects the reader, who senses the intensity of the friendships and the enjoyment of the experiences, which mainly focus on triumphs over the more petty minded masters. The success of his treatment makes a modern reader quite uncomfortable, especially when he seems to have fond memories of bullying. The way that his schoolboys rebel against authority was controversial at the time, but much less so now. Times have changed.

The reader is also made aware, more deliberately, of a different dark undercurrent. Sprinkled throughout the stories are notes about the future deaths of the boys; they are destined to die young in the service of the British Empire. (One of them, interestingly, is going to be shot by his own men, a less glorified death than the others.) Kipling's point is presumably that the Empire was maintained at a human cost; despite his reputation as a jingoist, this is not the only place where he showed an awareness of this. Few today would deny that there was a human cost, though the focus has canged so that we would think about what it meant to the colonised rather than the coloniser.

Stalky and Co. is one of the most uncomfortable of Kipling's books to read, and this is a measure of the author's talent, as he glories in what is to us unpalatable and almost brings us to feel we appreciate it too.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, sadism and masochism 101. A story which in today’s times give child psychologists permanent employment. Stalky, Beetle and Turkey are three fifteen year olds at a school training children for the army. This seems to involve bullying, punishment and duplicity of the highest order.

There are stories which formed the basis for a series of comic characters like Billy Bunter that lived on to the 1960s and 1970s.

Stalky and his cohorts in a series of stories outwit the other students and their masters. The class rigidity and perception of the children about the world is of an age long dead. Kipling in this story shows his jingoism and lack of morality unless your part of the club.

Killing cats, bullying, torturing children and corporal punishment are lessons we have for the most part left behind us. Of course there are still English public schools that have questionable systems. Eton, Harrow and Winchester have and continue to turn out sadists and sociopaths.

[Sherwood Smith]

This and P.G. Wodehouse's are among the best of the "school stories" genre--boarding school stories that were enormously popular during the latter part of the nineteenth century, and the first half of the twentieth, with a rapid falling off around WW II.

Most school stories, Wodehouse's included, shroud the boys in eternal youth, their bright star shining at games and being prefects, etc. There is scarce a hint at the prospect of being a grownup--except in Kipling's hilarious, brilliantly written, but violently roustabout series of stories. The intent of all these stories is to show how this school hardened the boys to pain, shaping them for army service--the maneuvering of their pranks furnishing lessons for war maneuvers in future.

I see something else going on even farther underneath that, which is Kipling's deep crush on Stalky (based on the real life L. C. Dunsterville), who makes his appearance in the first written of the stories, "in black tights and doublet, a black silk half-mask on his forehead, whistling lazily where he lay on top of the piano." Though another character--"Dick Four stood firm in the confidence born of well-fitting tights"--is recorded as self-aware of looking good, the brief but telling physical descriptions of Stalky later, in a story where very little physical detail is supplied of the boys, indicates that Beetle was aware of Stalky in his tights if Stalky himself wasn't.

I don't know that Kipling's crush was lust so much as a euphoric admiration for the type of person Dunsterville/Stalky was and he could never be--short, fat, hairy, half-blind with near-sightedness as Kipling was. There was no question of the army as a career for him, but he did his best to get near the others by becoming a journalist in India, where he followed the military life closely.

Many have wondered why Kipling wrote these stories years after he left the school. I wonder if it's because he heard about Dunsterville's exploits; also telling is the fact that though Kipling claimed a life-long friendship with Dunsterville, that did not go two ways. Not that Dunsterville rejected Kipling. He seems to have been a genial man, first to laugh at himself, friendly to all. But his interest in Kipling seems to have been mild, whereas the reverse was not true. And of course much ink has been spilled about Kipling's martial ardor and unstinting love of the glory of empire in his other writings.

It is unnerving to reread "Slaves of the Lamp II" and Kipling's paean to Dunsterville through Stalky's exploits in India and Afghanistan. At the end, the thirty-year-old schoolmates are gathered at the home of one of their number who inherited a baronetcy and wealth, and yet who misses the army. Two of the fellows have had their health ruined, but they show the usual stoic indifference to pain that Kipling heavily underscores through the stories. At the very end, Kipling trumpets with war-like euphoria, through Beetle, his mouthpiece in the stories, ' . . . India's full of Stalkies--Cheltenham and Haileybury and Marlborough chaps--that we don't know anything about, and the surprises will begin when there is a really big row on.'

'Who will be surprised?' said Dick Four.

'The other side. The gentleman who go to the front in first-class carriages. Just imagine Stalky let loose on the south side of Europe with a sufficiency of Sikhs and a reasonable prospect of loot. Consider it quietly.'

These men's sons would be the ones to be shipped to the Somme in WW I a few years later. As Kipling's was in reality, to be shot down at age eighteen, the same age as Everett, so young he looked girlish lying dead in the snow, and the boy glorified in "A Little Prep." The anguish Kipling felt afterward, and recorded, was a far cry from the stories' militant and glorious indifference to such young lives summarily wiped out in service to empire.

[Dimitra Maranti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Η σοφη ιδιοκτήτρια των Πλειαδων όταν της ειπα οτι δε μπορώ να συγκεντρωθώ να διαβάσω βιβλιο λόγω πένθους, μου πρότεινε να ξαναδιαβασω κάποιο πολυ αγαπημένο μου και καπως έτσι κατέληξα στο λατρεμένο- χωρις υπερβολή- παιδικό μου ανάγνωσμα (μόνη μας πατρίδα η παιδική μας ηλικια κτλ κτλ). Πιθανόν πια να θεωρείται ξεπερασμένο αλλα το ειχα λιώσει ως μαθήτρια δημοτικού και όποτε το εντόπιζα στη βιβλιοθήκη το ξαναδιαβαζα... Σκανταλιαρηδες έφηβοι σε προπαρασκευαστικό κολλέγιο της Αγγλίας λιγο πριν το 1900, με χιούμορ και αγγλικό φλεγμα, οτι πρεπει για να σου φτιάξουν τη διάθεση- ή τουλάχιστον να βελτιώσουν τη δικια μου...

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful book. Read initially as part of my quest to discover what got the nineteenth century reading, this will go straight to my must-read-again stack. Kipling writes like an angel and perfectly captures the glee of a clever teenager who outwits those he despises but is capable of recognising heroism in those he admires. It's one of those rare books which can make you cry with laughing then five minutes later cry for the pity of things. It is a series of loosely linked japes but the final chapter brings deeper meaning to the frolics. An absolute must.

[astried · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read 2018

I must’ve read this countless time.. each time it’s still very entertaining. Though each time darker thought creeps deeper into it. I need to read it sparingly to not break it.

———-

Stalky & co is the ultimate boy's boarding school book for me. If Enid Blyton's numerous school stories reigned my childhood, then Stalky is the story I can continue to enjoy in my adulthood. It's devilishly funny & one of my favourite Kipling's work. My most favourite would have to be Baa Baa Blacksheep (i think that's the title) short story which I somehow mislaid. It's a shame that during this last re-read I became more aware of the imperialistic tone that Kipling's world has. Nothing blatantly annoying, just having this thought at the back of my mind that these boys, these wonderfully wild & incorrigible boys, were drilled to become soldiers defending the "rights" of british empire; and some of them will die because of it.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still my favourite edition of this book. I've read it countless times, and will again. Dear old Stalky, dear old M'Turk, and "the egregious Beetle." For anyone who dreamed of going to boarding school, or dreamed of going back to the 19th century, or both. For some reason, the last chapter is my favourite. It's something about the wording; I can see it all.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a kid I dreamed of going to boarding school; dunno why, as I probably would have been bullied and mocked there even more than I was in a small rural public school. But I did; maybe I just wanted to leave home for 9 months out of every year.

I first heard of Stalky and Co about 25 years or so ago, cross-referenced in The Railway Children when Peter shouts at one of his sisters something along the lines of, "You're not funny--and you got it out of Stalky!" Up to then, the only Kipling books I was really aware of were of course The Jungle Books. I picked up this edition of Stalky and Co. shortly after and read it several times. What was my surprise about a year ago to discover this "Complete" edition, which contains 4 "Stalky stories" not included in the standard editions! I really enjoyed learning how Stalky got his name, and some of the footnotes were useful, particularly the one that explains the moniker of "Rabbits-Eggs" (up to now I figured he sold rabbits and eggs, either of his own production or poached from the hens of others). However, I can see why the stories weren't included in the standard editions offered up to the young when first published; the "missing" stories are a bit long and verbose and less interesting than the rest (particularly "The Idolaters" which--dare I say it?--pushes credulity to the very limit, even for Stalky and co.) I have marked it as for "children" but I am aware that all that Latin and literary quotations and etc will no longer appeal to many young people today, unless they're as odd and literary-minded as I was myself from about age eight--and at that time in that place, I was indeed an oddity!

A small quibble I have with the edition itself; the editor/proofreader repeatedly confuses the use of the question mark with the exclamation point, turning several exclamations into questions that really shouldn't be (and aren't in other editions). This is so frequent in some paragraphs as to become annoying. I also object to modern editors mucking about with the language of classic authors. Although unafraid to include the racial epithet "nigger" more than once, for some reason the editors felt led to remove the word "bukh" from the text on page 282. I've read the old edition often enough to remember that Tertius uses the term "bukhing" to mean "telling a tale"; the editors in their wisdumb decided to cut the word entirely, though they had no problem with other Hindi words such as "Boh", "nullah", "rapparee" and many others. They may have felt unsure of its exact meaning, but if Kipling used the word, why did they take it upon themselves to remove it--particularly as other footnotes indicate lack of certainty when "explaining" other references?

[Dominic Gowland · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kippers for breakfast Aunt Helga? Is it St. Swithens day already?!

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stalky and Co. is a fascinating piece of English story-telling, even if it doesn't necessarily amount to great literature. Written at the tail-end of the nineteenth century, this collection of connected stories falls into the grand tradition of British school stories, a tradition to which the Harry Potter books also belong.

Kipling's tales go well beyond the standard requirements of the genre, and were likely targeted towards an older audience than school-age readers. The teenaged protagonists perfectly fit the expected profile, but their anti-authoritarian antics and disinterest in schoolwork and athletics marks them as something other than the usual clever outcasts that seem to populate most school stories.

Particularly in the story "The Flag of Their Country", it becomes clear that Stalky and his pals Beetle and M'Turk (pronounced "McTurk") are unimpressed by patriotic obligations to king and country. For them, military and colonial service are both family business and personal destiny, and the Union Jack has little to do with their motivations to serve empire.

It all comes together in the closing story "Slaves of the Lamp Part II", which projects forward several years. The pals are now in their thirties, and all have served on the Indian sub-continent. As they reminisce on their colonial adventures, it becomes clear that the rebellious Stalky has grown into a free-thinking junior officer, who excels at guerrilla tactics that meet with official disproval. And yet with his mastery of native customs and languages, he clearly understands ground truth much better than "The gentlemen who go to the front in first-class carriages."

All-in-all, Stalky and Co. is an interesting vision of the mechanics of imperialism, drawing upon something other than mindless jingoism. The contents are often not pretty, given that Stalky and his schoolboy pals are quite vicious and narcissistic, always more than willing to fully exploit every privilege that comes their way, regardless of who gets hurt. Kipling's achievement is demonstrating how those youthful cruelties were channeled into adult accomplishments in the colonies, accomplishments that were even more violent than their schoolboy mischief, but conducted in an arena where their impact was altogether more destructive.

[Robin Braysher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boarding school fiction is not really 'my thing' - although I certainly read some in my youth and will make an exception for the incomparable 'Molesworth' books - but I decided to read 'Stalky & Co,' because I have a memory, which may be false, that George McDonald Fraser used it as a guide for the dialogue in his 'Flashman' novels. It seems quite likely as I spotted many similarities in the turns of phrase but, much to my surprise, I actually quite enjoyed the book. First of all, it really surprised me - this isn't your 'normal' public school full of manly little muscular Christians who always 'play the game' and see off cads like Flashman. In truth, 'the Coll' seems to have more in common with St Custards/St Trinians, being an anarchic place full of callous little brutes who shoot cats, sneak off to smoke, cheat at homework and wreak revenge on masters and prefects alike. Not at all what I expected from that arch-imperialist, Kipling; however, there they learn how to deal with their juniors, seniors/betters and social inferiors (for good and ill), stand by their 'tribe' and go on to fight (and die) for the Empire! I expect late Victorian and Edwardian boys loved it. I found the Latin and literary allusions tedious - but a product of a 1970s comprehensive is hardly the 'target audience', though - but it's a fascinating view of the formative years of the middling sort who would go on to become subalterns and suchlike and, indeed, of Kipling himself.

[Brigitte Cromey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some books you read once because you had to, and you never pick them up again.

Others you read once, then again. And again. And again. (That’s this one)

There’s not a whole lot this one has going for it, as far as the tastes of modern readers go. There aren’t really any flashy pieces of action, the setting is decidedly not politically correct, and the dialogue is so full of inside jokes and cultural references that you have to refer to the many-page index of numbered explanations just to make sense of everything.

But this is a timeless favorite of mine, and here’s the reason why:
This is a story about boys and the men they become. Specifically, it’s a story about how the experiences of adolescence shape the adults of the future. It’s a carefully pierced together collection of small victories (and some defeats) that seem inconsequential save for the things we know the characters learned from them. It manages to capture that feeling of being unabashedly clever, of using one’s limited resources to alter odds so that they fall in one’s favor, and of successfully making one’s presence known in true cunning fashion.

Actually, now that I think about it, this is basically a collection of trickster stories, except there’s the implication that these tricksters eventually grow up into strong men who serve their country well.

So yeah, five stars from me, for a book that couldn’t be farther removed from everything else I normally read.

[Catherine Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most influential books of my life, first read at age 14. Some folks might think it a lamentable influence, with the three protagonists creatively breaking every school rule. It´s also about underdogs fighting back - underdogs who read Ruskin and Browing and the English Opium Eater. Every kid who´s ever been considered a nerd can identify with it - and even learn a few positive things.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. I tried, believe me, I did it. My friend loves the book and I'm also a fan of boarding-school stories. But I just couldn't get through this one. The students were a**holes, the teachers were abusive and overall it was too "boys will be boys"-ish for my liking. Every chapter I managed to finish left a bad taste in my mouth.

[The Sheila · Rating 2 out of 5]

That smart-mouthed bully who used to get away with cheating, lying, and throwing spitballs at your head during Chem. has most likely grown up to be the hero of the frickin' universe. But what are you complaining about, you giddy basket-hanger? Boys will be boys.

[Martin Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stalky and Co. by Rudyard Kipling, is a collection of stories set at a public school, preparing boys for either British military officer training, or imperial public service. Based on Kipling’s school days at Devon’s United Services College, the stories first appeared in magazines between 1897 and 1899, before publication as a book in 1899. A trio of pupils, Stalky, McTurk and Beetle, feature as the central characters.

This book, and Kipling in general, is somewhat controversial today. But it is interesting that Stalky and Co. was equally controversial when it was first published. Robert Buchanan in The Contemporary Review considered the book vulgar, brutal and savage. Henry James thought it deplorable, Somerset Maugham, odious. Harsh criticism also came from such luminaries as A.C. Benson, Edmund Wilson, and George Sampson, author of the Concise History of English Literature. These reactions do not reflect a once respectable, now outmoded book. It has never been universally well-regarded.

I would suggest that Stalky and Co. might offend now, and when it was published, because it is actually about respectability, presenting an unflinching portrayal of the contradictions that lurk beneath its proper facade.

A ‘good’ pupil at the Stalky school would play cricket, follow the rules, respect authority. There is more than a suggestion that this attitude simply puts boys on a production line, carrying them to a likely death on a foreign field. One master objects to an old boy of the school describing to current pupils the violent end of another old boy during battle. That sort of thing is undermining of morality and good order. You can’t have boys realising what they are signing up for. It might stop them working towards the goals their teachers set for them.

And then there’s all the contradictions involved in a school aiming to produce leaders, while thrashing its students into respectful obedience. One story focuses on a group of boys who are always late for breakfast. Their punishment is to do military drill with an old army veteran. Ironically, this is the only example of actual military activity that goes on here. When a visiting general suggests that the school should have a cadet corp, it is these naughty drill boys who are the only pupils ready to form such a group. And the corp leader is the naughtiest boy of all, Stalky himself. It is Stalky who eventually translates his years of sneaky, frequently vile, school pranks into an highly respectable army career, where tactics of deception and deflection win the day with minimum risk to life, especially his own.

And these ironies around respectability extend to the book’s language - my favourite aspect of Stalky and Co. The dialogue is a complete mishmash of highfalutin Latin, French, quotes from classic authors, and low-brow, local Devon dialect. Stalky and his followers mix all of this language indiscriminately together in an exuberant teenage slang. It’s like the approach the headmaster takes in supporting Beetle’s obvious literary talents, giving him the run of his library, recommending nothing and prohibiting nothing. This is a good training in not being too ready to classify writing into easy categories of respectable or unworthy. Yes, Henry James, Somerset Maugham and people who write fancy histories of English Literature are all correct in their judgements of Stalky and Co. And yet… good writing is often not proper at its heart. It does tend to challenge assumptions in an uncomfortable way. That’s what Stalky and Co. does. I admired it.

[Palmyrah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Victorian schoolboys (at least, the ones in Victorian school stories) seem to have been tougher customers that their twentieth-century equivalents.

The three heroes of this famous book, aged fifteen or sixteen when we first meet them, all smoke like chimneys, quaff substantial amounts of beer (some of which they brew illicitly on the school premises) and indulge in frequent, salutary violence, though always, of course, from the finest of motives. If they little resemble the clean-cut young exemplars of later school fiction, it may be that they are a little truer to life. Stalky & Co. are seasoned rebels, adept at playing masters and other boys alike for fools, and getting things done in their own peculiarly ingenious, rule-bending way. Their school life appears to be a long and largely successful guerilla campaign against authority--something Kipling portrays as ideal training for the contingent, improvisatory lives they will soon come to lead on the unquiet frontiers of the British Empire. He drives the point home in the last chapter, in which we are shown the kind of man--the kind of hero--Stalky has become in young adulthood. Incidentally, the trio of Stalky, M'Turk and Beetle are all modelled on real people; Beetle is Kipling himself.

The book is very much of a piece with the rest of the man's work--a celebration of paternalistic imperialism and the manly virtues as our Victorian predecessors understood them. If you like that sort of thing (even if, as am I, you are attracted to it in spite of liberal, multicultural views and a leaning towards pacificism), you'll love Stalky & Co.. If you don't like, don't read.

[José Manuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

La vida y aventuras de tres amigos en un internado inglés del siglo XIX, como paso previo al ingreso en una academia militar. Tres chavales, rebeldes e independientes, cuya principal diversión es cuestionar y transgredir las durísimas normas tradicionales establecidas, lo que les supone frecuentemente el castigo, no menos tradicional, del palmetazo o la vara de fresno.
Travesuras (a veces más que gamberradas) con el objetivo de poner en ridículo y cuestionar la autoridad de profesores pedantes y engreídos. Crítica ácida del régimen de vida en esas instituciones, aunque muchos de los hechos que denuncian en otros los practican ellos mismos: cuestionan el sistema pero se aprovechan de sus ventajas. El cruel abuso de autoridad, no ya de los docentes, sino entre los propios alumnos está a la orden del día. La conclusión no es muy edificante, pero era el sistema educativo para los que iban representar, defender y engrandecer al Imperio Británico. Así se hace uno un hombre y ¡Dios salve a la Reina!
A los que sólo conocemos muy a la ligera el "modus operandi" de esos internados se nos hace difícil apreciar en toda su extensión la carga crítica y la parodia. La traducción de Antonio Ribera en la edición que he leído (la de las Obras Escogidas de Aguilar, no sé si la misma que la de Bruguera de la imagen) no ayuda mucho.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Unluckily, all Mr. Prout's imagination leaned to the darker side of life, and he looked on those young-eyed cherubim most sourly. Boys that he understood attended house-matches and could be accounted for at any moment. But he had hear M'Turk openly deride cricket--even house-matches; Beetle's views on the honour of the house he knew we incendiary; and he could never tell when the soft and smiling Stalky was laughing at him. Consequently--since human nature is what it is--those boys had been doing wrong somewhere. He hoped it was nothing very serious, but...
"'Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu! I gloat! Hear me!' Stalky, still on his heels, whirled like a dancing dervish to the dining-hall."

Adventure, exploration, and mischievous antics are the hallmarks of "Stalky and Co." The title character and his two friends cause no end of trouble for their peers and teachers, and though their hijinks sometimes strain the limits of credulity, they are nonetheless entertaining.

[C Mic · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read this book so many times that it has become dog eared and stained and creased along all the best pages - the mark of a favourite.

Even if the imperialism of the British Empire and the undisguised brutality of the Victorian school boy doesn't appeal, the sheer deliciousness of excerpts from Browning and Ruskin, the snippets of Latin and French and the frabjous forms of expression will be enough.

The pleasure of being a clever cheeky school boy looking to practice the art of warfare and subtle campaigns of rebellion will have you running down the halls with glee singing tir rir ra la I tu I gloat, hear me!

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reread because YT reminded me it existed. I loved it when I was eight (apparently it did not bother me that entire conversations were incomprehensible on account of French, Latin, 19th century slang or all three) and enjoyed actually understanding the French, Latin and historical references (well, being able to google them, anyway) this time around. Loses a star for colonialism and one bit of astounding narrative sexism, egregious even for the era, that makes me throw the book across the room every time.

[Alfonso Alvarez de Mon · Rating 4 out of 5]

El libro describe las aventuras estudiantiles de unos adolescentes, alumnos de una pequeña escuela privada inglesa donde se preparan para la Academia Militar. Son gamberradas entre alumnos y también contra los profesores. Pone de manifiesto que la vida de un joven en un internado era una existencia dura: violencia en la disciplina de los profesores y violencia, sobre todo, entre los propios alumnos. El último capítulo es un encuentro de antiguos compañeros de colegio que se cuentan batallitas de la vida militar, muy semejantes a los recuerdos de su vida colegial.

[Rue Baldry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is largely written in obsolete schoolboy slang, so it's not an easy read. I love it, though, it's an amazing insight into boys' boarding school life in the late nineteenth century. It's an open window into a disappeared world. It's a brutal world, but one with justice and friendship in it, where respect has to be earned. The moral code is quite unlike ours. Also it is very funny and sometimes moving, too.

[C-shaw]

Oh Captain, my Captain!

[Stephen Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book, and perhaps for that reason I took so long to read it.

It's a school story about three teenage schoolboys at a boarding school in North Devon in England, where Rudyard Kipling himself went to school. These three, Beetle, Turkey (M'Turk) and the eponymous Stalky himself are rebels in the school, rebelling against the teachers, the prefects, and the system of authority. Since the school is in the same area, and shares many of the characteristics of the school that Kipling himself attended, it probably reflects Kipling's own response to his schooling, and his thoughts on education, authority and discipline.

Many of the pupils at the school are children of British army offices, and, since it is set in the late 19th century, it was at the height of British imperialism, so most of the boys were born outside the UK, and many of them plan to have careers in the army.

One thing I liked about the book is that though many schools of that kind are run on authoritarian lines, and are calculated to foster an authoritarian outlook in their pupils, the three heroes of the story cock a snook at authority and put down authoritarian teachers and prefects. What I didn't much like about it was the sadistic and vengeful manner in which they often did so, and most especially Kipling's evident approval of this.

Kipling makes the point, which I think is a good one, that much of the learning in school actually takes place in extra-curricular activities and is quite unplanned. This would go right against the idea of the Outcomes-Based Education that was recently tried in South African schools with not much success. The outcomes in Stalky and Co are without exception unplanned and unexpected, at least by the school authorities.

The last chapter shows some of the main characters, with the exception of Stalky himself, meeting again after having been out of school for some years, having all seen military service in India, and they share some of their experiences and rumours of Stalky, who has been disciplined by the army as he had been at school. It appears that he had been a military success, but in an unconventional way. Kipling's idea of a good army officer is an irregular and unconventional one. Perhaps Kipling's ideal military leader would be a guerrilla leader, like Che Guevara, or a mercenary leader, like Mad Mike Hoare.