Letters of Travel

by Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 - 18 January 1936) was an English author and poet. He is regarded as a major "innovator in the art of the short story"; his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature; and his best works speak to a versatile and luminous narrative gift. Kipling was one of the most popular writers in English, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English language writer to receive the prize, and to date he remains its youngest recipient.

Genres: Travel, Classics, Nonfiction, History

306 pages, Paperback

Published January 28, 2013

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

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

From this book, I have learned that there are two Rudyard Kiplings, and the fault line runs right through the middle of Letters of Travel, 1892-1913. The first 60% of the book is about his travels to the United States, Canada, and Japan. In those places, he seems to be bored and restless, writing like a paid public relations person for the Chamber of Commerce. The moment he gets off the boat at Port Said for a visit to Egypt and the Soudan, on the other hand, he -- and the book -- comes alive. If you are tempted to read this book, you can skip everything up to his voyage to Egypt.

[Timothy Ferguson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve read a little bit of Kipling, and so I have much the same view of him as most people who have read only a little bit of Kipling, so this book was a real eye opener. He isn’t an archetype. I’ve always thought that Kipling’s British boosterism was basically pro-English, but here we find it isn’t. He really sees himself as British first, and uses the Canadian form of Britishness to severely critique the English form, which is less robust, in his opinion. He’s also familiar with Australia and New Zealand to a surprising degree, and thinks Melbourne’s brilliant. This was not a widely held opinion at the time among Londoners.

So, he was pro-Imperial, but he was odd about it. He thought the British were the business, but at the same time, his idea of what was British is very nebulous. He’s not nearly as strident as I expected. I particularly enjoyed Captains Courageous, where he points out that the heroes of the next generation are alive and working now. I’m not saying he invented steampunk, but he clearly was onto something is claiming that the stories of great deeds in his own time are not romances.

Good for steampunkers looking at the source material, enthusiasts of travel writing, and Canadians .

This review originally appeared on book coasters

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't read a single book by Kipling before. A friend of mine inherited a whole leather-bound, gold ornamented library through an old-school relative of his. I was intrigued by the look and feel of these books that I borrowed seven titles. 'Letters of Travel' has plenty of enjoyable insights into the bygone era that will never return. Kipling is the man of his time, so we get "natives" and "white men" in his narrative. I didn't find it racist, just old-fashioned, because his judgments are balanced. Kipling's sense of metaphor and a picturesque turn of phrase is fabulous, and his love of the Far East and the Muslim world, as they used to be, is contagious. He writes about the 19th-century New York, which is fascinating. He also liked Canada a lot. Give it a try. It's not too bad at all.

[Malola · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh...

Beautiful written style (as everything Mr. Kipling wrote), but rather vacuous. I did enjoy a lot his perspective on Japan and its culture.

[David Frazier · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is mainly of interest if you're a fiend for travel writing or have some odd interest in world travel in the late 1800s. Personally, the most interesting chapter was "Our Overseas Men", an excellent sketch of a breed of Far East merchants, who serve as a sort of missing link between colonialists and expats. Beyond this, the younger Kipling was not a half-bad travel writer, certainly not as colorful as Mark Twain, but an accomplished ironist, if a little distant. There are plenty of astute and highly quotable observations (eg. "“the more 'democratic' a land is, the more make-believes must the stranger respect”), and it's well worth a read if his themes and itinerary happen to match targets of your research.

Final note: I read a free-download edition from Project Gutenburg.