Plain Tales from the Hills

by Rudyard Kipling

Overview

Plain Tales from the Hills (published 1888) is the first collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Out of its 40 stories, "eight-and-twenty", according to Kipling's Preface, were initially published in the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, Punjab, British India between November 1886 and June 1887. "The remaining tales are, more or less, new." (Kipling had worked as a journalist for the CMG-his first job-since 1882, when he was not quite 17.)

The title refers, by way of a pun on "Plain" as the reverse of "Hills", to the deceptively simple narrative style; and to the fact that many of the stories are set in the Hill Station of Simla-the "summer capital of the British Raj" during the hot weather. Not all of the stories are, in fact, about life in "the Hills": Kipling gives sketches of many aspects of life in British India.

The tales include the first appearances, in book form, of Mrs. Hauksbee, the policeman Strickland, and the Soldiers Three (Privates Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd).

In the preface to his short stories collection "Dr. Brodie's Report", Jorge Luis Borges wrote he was inspired by the quality and conciseness of Plain Tales from the Hills. (wikipedia.org)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781636372891
Publisher:	Bibliotech Press
Publication date:	11/11/2022
Pages:	180
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) was born in Bombay. During his time at the United Services College, he began to write poetry, privately publishing Schoolboy Lyrics in 1881. The following year he started work as a journalist in India, and while there produced a body of work, stories, sketches, and poems —including “Mandalay,” “Gunga Din,” and “Danny Deever”—which made him an instant literary celebrity when he returned to England in 1889. While living in Vermont with his wife, an American, Kipling wrote The Jungle Books, Just So Stories, and Kim—which became widely regarded as his greatest long work, putting him high among the chronicles of British expansion. Kipling returned to England in 1902, but he continued to travel widely and write, though he never enjoyed the literary esteem of his early years. In 1907, he became the first British writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize.

Jan Montefiore (series editor) is a professor of twentieth-century English literature at the University of Kent. She is the author of Men and Women Writers of the 1930s (1996); Arguments of Heart and Mind: Selected Essays 1977–2000 (2002); Feminism and Poetry (3rd edition, 2004); and Rudyard Kipling (2007). 

Kaori Nagai (editor/introducer) is a Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of Kent and author of Empire of Analogies (2006) and Imperial Beast Fables (2020).

Table of Contents

General Preface vii

Introduction xii

Note on the Text xxiii

Select Bibliography xxx

A Chronology of Kipling's Life and Works xxxiii

Plain Tales From The Hills

Dedication 3

Preface 5

Lispeth 7

Three and-an Extra 12

Thrown Away 16

Miss Youghal's Sais 24

'Yoked with an Unbeliever' 30

False Dawn 35

The Rescue of Pluffles 43

Cupid's Arrows 48

The Three Musketeers 53

His Chance in Life 59

Watches of the Night 65

The Other Man 71

Consequences 75

The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin 81

The Taking of Lungtungpen 86

A Germ-Destroyer 92

Kidnapped 97

The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly 102

In the House of Suddhoo 108

His Wedded Wife 116

The Broken-Link Handicap 122

Beyond the Pale 127

In Error 133

A Bank Fraud 137

Tod's Amendment 144

The Daughter of the Regiment 150

In the Pride of his Youth 156

Pig 162

The Rout of the White Hussars 169

The Bronckhorst Divorce-Case 179

Venus Annodomini 185

The Bisara of Pooree 190

A Friend's Friend 195

The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows 201

The Madness of Private Ortheris 207

The Story of Muhammad Din 215

On the Strength of a Likeness 218

Wressley of the Foreign Office 224

By Word of Mouth 229

To be Filed for Reference 234

Appendix A Bitters Neat 243

Appendix B Haunted Subalterns 247

Explanatory Notes 252

Editorial Reviews

Set principally in Shimla, the mountain town and summer capital of the Raj, Kipling's 40 short stories on the manners and mores of British settlers in India are well observed and masterful character studies. Martin Jarvis begins beautifully; his warm voice is a rich and textured instrument, and he becomes Kipling's narrator effortlessly; rather like Fitzgerald's Nick Carraway, Kipling's stand-in casts a camera-like view on the intrigue, pettiness, and genuine tragedies in his little world. There is wit that borders on the Wildean (“She was wicked, in a businesslike way. There was never any scandal; she had not generous impulses enough for that”). It would be a nearly flawless listen—but for Jarvis's inaccurate and rather cringe-inducing accents for the Indian characters. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

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