Plain Tales from the Hills
Cover of the First Edition (1888) | |
Author | Rudyard Kipling (English) |
---|---|
Language | English |
Publisher | Thacker, Spink and Company, Calcutta |
Publication date | 1888 |
Publication place | British India |
Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
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.
The stories
- "Lispeth"
- "Three and – an Extra"
- "Thrown Away"
- "Miss Youghal's Sais"
- "'Yoked with an Unbeliever'"
- "False Dawn"
- "The Rescue of Pluffles"
- "Cupid's Arrows"
- "The Three Musketeers"
- "His Chance in Life"
- "Watches of the Night"
- "The Other Man"
- "Consequences"
- "The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin"
- "The Taking of Lungtungpen"
- "A Germ-Destroyer"
- "Kidnapped"
- "The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly"
- "In the House of Suddhoo"
- "His Wedded Wife"
- "The Broken-Link Handicap"
- "Beyond the Pale"
- "In Error"
- "A Bank Fraud"
- "Tods' Amendment"
- "The Daughter of the Regiment"
- "In the Pride of his Youth"
- "Pig"
- "The Rout of the White Hussars"
- "The Bronckhorst Divorce-case"
- "Venus Annodomini"
- "The Bisara of Pooree"
- "A Friend's Friend"
- "The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows"
- "The Madness of Private Ortheris"
- "The Story of Muhammad Din"
- "On the Strength of a Likeness"
- "Wressley of the Foreign Office"
- "By Word of Mouth"
- "To be Filed for Reference"
Some of the characters in these stories reappear in the novel Kim.
References
- Carpenter, H. and M. Prichard. 1984. The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York.
External links
- Plain Tales from the Hills public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- Works by Rudyard Kipling at Project Gutenberg
- Works by Kipling
- Note that as Kipling's writing is mostly in the public domain, a large number of individual websites contain parts of his work; these two sites are comprehensive, containing almost everything publicly available.
- Something of Myself, Kipling's autobiography
- The Kipling Society website
- Kipling Readers' Guide from the Kipling Society; annotated notes on stories and poems.
- v
- t
- e
- The Light That Failed (1891)
- The Naulahka: A Story of West and East (co-author, Wolcott Balestier, 1892)
- Captains Courageous (1896)
- Kim (1901)
- Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)
- Soldiers Three (1888)
- The Story of the Gadsbys (1888)
- In Black and White (1888)
- The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Tales (1888)
- Under the Deodars (1888)
- Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories (1888)
- From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel (1889)
- Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, poetry)
- Many Inventions (1893)
- The Jungle Book (1894)
- "Mowgli's Brothers"
- "Kaa's Hunting"
- "Tiger! Tiger!"
- "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"
- The Second Jungle Book (1895)
- "Letting in the Jungle"
- "Red Dog"
- All the Mowgli Stories (c. 1895)
- The Seven Seas (1896, poetry)
- The Day's Work (1898)
- Stalky & Co. (1899)
- Just So Stories (1902)
- The Five Nations (1903, poetry)
- Puck of Pook's Hill (1906)
- Rewards and Fairies (1910)
- The Fringes of the Fleet (1915, non-fiction)
- Debits and Credits (1926)
- Limits and Renewals (1932)
- Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Definitive Edition (1940)
- A Choice of Kipling's Verse (by T. S. Eliot, 1941)
- "The Absent-Minded Beggar"
- "The Ballad of the 'Clampherdown'"
- "The Ballad of East and West"
- "The Beginnings"
- "The Bell Buoy"
- "The Betrothed"
- "Big Steamers"
- "Boots"
- "Cold Iron"
- "Dane-geld"
- "Danny Deever"
- "A Death-Bed"
- "The Female of the Species"
- "Fuzzy-Wuzzy"
- "Gentleman ranker"
- "The Gods of the Copybook Headings"
- "Gunga Din"
- "Hymn Before Action"
- "If—"
- "In the Neolithic Age"
- "The King's Pilgrimage"
- "The Last of the Light Brigade"
- "The Lowestoft Boat"
- "Mandalay"
- "The Mary Gloster"
- "McAndrew's Hymn"
- "My Boy Jack"
- "Recessional"
- "A Song in Storm"
- "The Sons of Martha"
- "Submarines"
- "The Sweepers"
- "Tommy"
- "Ubique"
- "The White Man's Burden"
- ".007"
- "The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly"
- "Baa Baa, Black Sheep"
- "Bread upon the Waters"
- "The Broken-Link Handicap"
- "The Butterfly that Stamped"
- "Consequences"
- "The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin"
- "Cupid's Arrows"
- "The Devil and the Deep Sea"
- "The Drums of the Fore and Aft"
- "Fairy-Kist"
- "False Dawn"
- "A Germ-Destroyer"
- "His Chance in Life"
- "His Wedded Wife"
- "In the House of Suddhoo"
- "Kidnapped"
- "Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris"
- "Lispeth"
- "The Man Who Would Be King"
- "A Matter of Fact"
- "Miss Youghal's Sais"
- "The Mother Hive"
- "The Other Man"
- "The Rescue of Pluffles"
- "The Ship that Found Herself"
- "The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo"
- "The Taking of Lungtungpen"
- "Three and – an Extra"
- "The Three Musketeers"
- "Thrown Away"
- "Toomai of the Elephants"
- "Watches of the Night"
- "Wireless"
- "Yoked with an Unbeliever"
- Bibliography
- Bateman's (house)
- Indian Railway Library
- Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer
- Law of the jungle
- Aerial Board of Control
- My Boy Jack (1997 play)
- Rudyard Kipling: A Remembrance Tale (2006 documentary)
- My Boy Jack (2007 film)
- Caroline Starr Balestier Kipling (wife)
- Elsie Bambridge (daughter)
- John Kipling (son)
- John Lockwood Kipling (father)
- MacDonald sisters (mother's family)
- Stanley Baldwin (cousin)
- Georgiana Burne-Jones (aunt)
- Edward Burne-Jones (uncle)
- Philip Burne-Jones (cousin)
- Edward Poynter (uncle)
- Alfred Baldwin (uncle)