Kim (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) - Rudyard Kipling [3]
1891 He travels to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and India (his last visit to that country). He publishes Life’s Handicap, a collection of Indian stories. The Light That Failed is published in a fourteen-chapter version.
1892 Alfred, Lord Tennyson dies. Kipling marries Caroline Balestier, an American and the sister of his friend and agent Wolcott Balestier. The couple plan a trip around the world, and travel as far as japan. Their Voyage is interupted because the bank that holds Kipling’s savings fails and because Caroline becomes Pregnant. The couple sets up house in Battleboro, Vermont, the Balestiers’hometown, where Kipling begins to compose the Jungle Bookstories. Kipling publishes Barrack-Room Ballads, a book of verse celebrating army life in the British Empire (including the famous ʻʻGunga Din,ʼʼabout a Hindu carrier for a British Indian regiment, and ʻʻFuzzy Wuzzyʼʼ), and a second novel, The Naulahka , written in collaboration with Wolcott Balestier. The Kiplings’ first child, Josephine, is born.
1893 Many Inventions, another Volume of Kipling’s short stories,is published.
1894-1895 Two collections of animal stories for children set in India,The Jungle Book andThe Second Jungle Book , featuring such memorable characters as Mowgli, Baloo, and Bagheera, are published.
1896 The Kiplings’ second child, Elsie, is born. A violent argument with his unstable brother-in-law Beatty Balestier prompts Kipling to move back to England.
1897 Kipling settles in Rottingdean, on the Sussex coast. He publishesCaptains Courageour, A seafaring novel. His son John, is born.
1898-1907 Kipling spends winters in South Africa and forms a close relationship with British imperialist,Cecil Rhodes.
1899 By this time the British Empire includes almost a quarter of the world’ s land surface and population.The Boer War, a conflict of the South African Republic and Orange Free
States against Great Britain, begins and continues until 1902. Kipling visits the United States for the last time, survives a near-fatal vout of pneumonia, and experiances the sudden death of his elder daughter, Josephine. Stalky & Co.,based on the time he spent at the United Services College, is published.From Sea to Sea is published (See entry for 1889).Joseph Conrad publishes his novel Heat Of Darkness.
1900 The Kipling Reader, a selection of his works, is published. Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim appears.
1901 Kim,Kipling’s last and best novel, becomes a best-seller, it tells the story of an Irish orphan raised in India who eventually becomes a member of the English Secret Service. Queen Victoria of England dies and Edward VII becomes king; U.S. president William McKinley is assassinated and suceeded by Theodore Roosevelt. Guglielmo Marconi transmits the first wireless messages. German writer Thomes Mann publishesBuddembrooks and Swedish playwright August Strindberg The Dance of Death. Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi (La Traviatia, Regoletto, etc.) and French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec die. French novelist and critic André Malraux and American film producer Walt Disney are born.
1902 Kipling purchases a hopuse known as Bateman’s in Burwash, Sussex, where he writes among other works,Just So Stories,a collection of fables for children, published this year.The Boer War ends in May with the Treaty of Vereeniging. The Tale of Peter Rabbit, By Beatrix Potter, appears.
1903 Jack London’s The Call of the While appears.
1906 Kipling publishes Puck of Pook’s Hill, a volume of poems and historical stories intended for children. A Libral government is elected in Great Britain. Kipling becomes critical of the regime’s pacifist sentiments and actively supports a militerized government.
1907 Kipling becomes the first English author to receive the Nobel Price for Literature. In spite of this honor , he is rapidly losing the favour of the British literary establishment. He visits Canada.
1908 Lor Robert Baden-Powell,kipling’s friend since the 1880s, founde the