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  • Published: 9 June 2011
  • ISBN: 9780141442358
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 624
  • RRP: $27.99

The Man Who Would Be King: Selected Stories of Rudyard Kipling




A new collection of Rudyard Kipling's short stories, selected and edited by Jan Montefiore

Rudyard Kipling is one of the most magical storytellers in the English language. This new selection brings together the best of his short writings, following the development of his work over fifty years. They take us from the harsh, cruel, vividly realized world of the 'Indian' stories that made his name, through the experimental modernism of his middle period to the highly-wrought subtleties of his later pieces. Including the tale of insanity and empire, 'The Man Who Would Be King', the high-spirited 'The Village that Voted the Earth Was Flat', the fable of childhood cruelty and revenge 'Baa Baa, Black Sheep', the menacing psychological study 'Mary Postgate' and the ambiguous portrayal of grief and mourning in 'The Gardener', here are stories of criminals, ghosts, femmes fatales, madness and murder.

  • Published: 9 June 2011
  • ISBN: 9780141442358
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 624
  • RRP: $27.99

Other books in the series

The New Penguin Book Of American Short Stories, From Washington Irving To Lydia Davis
A Dog's Heart
The Black Tulip
The Lady of the Camellias
Selected Poetry
On Sparta
Venus in Furs
Man and Superman
Botchan
Military Dispatches

About the author

Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, India, to British parents on December 30, 1865. In 1871 Rudyard and his sister, Trix, aged three, were left to be cared for by a couple in Southsea, England. Five years passed before he saw his parents again. His sense of desertion and despair were later expressed in his story "Baa Baa, Black Sheep" (1888), in his novel The Light That Failed (1890), and in his autobiography, Something of Myself (1937). As late as 1935, Kipling still spoke bitterly of the "House of Desolation" at Southsea: "I should like to burn it down and plough the place with salt." Kipling and his wife settled in Brattleboro, Vermont, where Kipling wrote The Jungle Book (1894), The Second Jungle Book (1895), and most of Captains Courageous (1897). By this time Kipling's popularity and financial success were enormous. In 1899 the Kiplings settled in Sussex, England, where he wrote some of his best books: Kim (1901), Just So Stories (1902), and Puck of Pook's Hill (1906). In 1907 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. By the time he died, on January 18, 1936, critical opinion was deeply divided about his writings, but his books continue to be read by thousands.

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