The Best Short Stories - Kipling

by Rudyard Kipling

This is a fascinating selection of Kipling's most famous short stories, bringing together the very best of his work. "Life's Handicap" reflects his experiences of India, and contains two horror stories which permeate the collection with an air of haunted destinies.

Delusions and obsessions, past lives and the slums of London in 1890 are the diverse topics featured in "Many Inventions". While "Traffics and Discoveries" contains three tales in which the subject matter ranges from unexplained mystery and the supernatural to an other-worldly house full of elusive but charming children. The Maltese Cat is Kipling's well-loved story about a polo pony.

These stories remind us once again that Kipling is an undisputed master of story-telling.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, English Literature, Literature

210 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

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

[Teresa Rokas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of 13 of Kipling's short stories. I liked 3 or 4 of them, but found the rest tedious to read.

[Richard Epstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feel smugly superior to Kipling? Think he was a racist, an imperialist, a jingoist, a militarist, a -- shudder -- kids' author? Read this. When you're finished, read it again. Then come talk to me.

By the way, if I could have, I'd have chosen the 1961 Doubleday edition edited by Randall Jarrell, who wrote a great preface to it. I think it's reprinted in his collection Kipling, Auden & Co.

[David Roark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense, layered, intelligent, and thought-provoking collection of stories. He has a knack for putting the reader so deeply and immediately within an environment that I felt the need for finding reference to the situation sometimes. Very interesting.

[Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting stories! I was a bit overwhelmed by the thick vocabulary of Kipling so this took me a long time to read, even though it's short. This was a gift from my mom around 20 years ago and I finally read it now, and I'm happy I did.

[Gergő Tóth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most of the stories are quite hard and arduous for a non-native speaker, but it's worth spending the time.

[ade_reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sesuai dengan judulnya, buku ini bagus. Recommended. Meskipun bagi saya pribadi, bahasa dan gaya penuturan penulisnya tidak mudah untuk dipahami, bacanya mesti pelan-pelan, sambil santai bahkan ya pada beberapa bagian saya baca sampai beberapa kali baru lah paham, dikiit...
Terima kasih, Ipeh Alena untuk hadiah bukunya.
...

2 April, 2020
The Best Short Stories Rudyard Kipling. Most of the stories are quite hard and difficult to read that I never really good get into the flow of the stories, but it's worth spending the time.

Recommended for those who love writers from the 1800s and early 1900s

[John Naylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I try to base my reviews just on how the words contained made me feel and not on anything I know about the author.

This edition of the short story collection contains 13 short stories. What I mostly learned was that Kipling loved an accent. Nearly every story contained one or more and some of them did break up the flow of the text too often as some of the words were very hard to decipher.

Apart from that, I didn't enjoy reading most of the stories. Some of which I read twice trying to see if I could find extra meaning or what I could assume was the aim of the author in writing them.

I did feel from these examples (and maybe one more well known work) that Kipling was better at writing for inanimate objects and animals rather than people. It can be hard to convey a character in a short story but in some cases there was next to no effort to do so in my opinion.

There were probably two stories that stood out of this collection but the worst I can say about three or four others is that they were boring. Kipling's place as a popular and universally known writer is safe but this isn't a good example of his best works.

[Vadim K · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was very hard to read in the beginning because of the language. I liked some of the stories:

The Disturber of traffic
The record of badalina herodsfoot
The ship that found herself
‘They’
Mrs Bathurst
Below the mill dam

It was interesting to see how people react to the modern age inventions, and also his mix of gothic and fairy tales…

[Dom · Rating 1 out of 5]

One good storey. A lot of dialogue

[Peveril · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed bag. Some excellent tales, some incomprehensible, some poetry.

[Janet Lynch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn’t actually the book I read, but it was as close as I could find to it. I downloaded the complete works of Kipling on my Kindle and delved into some of the short stories. I had dismissed Kipling long ago as racist and sexist, but now I understand these things better: he was a product of his time. What else could he be? Actually I chose to read him exactly for this reason as I again began to teach imperialism in my World History class. Of all the cases of imperialism, I think the relationship between Britain and India is the most fascinating, and that’s exactly what Kipling does brilliantly. I wanted to read an author who has no problem with “the dominant race” rolling off his tongue, not as opinion but simply the fact all people of the world accepts. I wasn’t disappointed. I didn’t get nearly through all the stories, but the ones I read were simply amazing in terms of describing the relationship between the Brits and the Indians and the exotic land and culture of India itself. I only scraped the surface—Kipling was prolific—and would like to return to him, especially to read his novel KIM. My favorite stories I read are “The City of Dreadful Night,” “The Phantom Rickshaw,” “The Strange Ride of Morwobie Jukes,” and “Wireless.”

[Tegar Yuniarta · Rating 2 out of 5]

this is pretty subjective.. it's quite difficult to understand the dialogue of many of the character (blame my english) since mostly they're not using proper english, especially in the 2 beginning chapter.. but overall, i like the story, especially The Maltese Cat which introduced me about Polo Game for the very first time..

[Tom]

Actually reading an ancient edition, edited by Randall Jarrell, with 50 stories.

[Eric · Rating 1 out of 5]

So difficult to read that I never really good get into the flow of the stories. I don't know why he has to alter his spellings to try to show me an Irish accent.

[Cirque · Rating 1 out of 5]

JUST FUCKING DON'T.

[Jimmakos Gavagias · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked a couple of stories but generally it didn't made me so excited in order not to let it

[Austere Rex · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought I would enjoy this book. I'm very disappointed. It's hard to settle in to the book. Man.