KIPLING, (Joseph) Rudyard

(1865-1936)

   UK poet, short-story writer and novelist, known mainly for such works outside the sf field as Plain Tales from the Hills (coll 1888 India) and Kim (1901). He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907.Before the age of 27, RK wrote a considerable number of stories containing elements of fantasy and horror. Some, like "The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes" (1885), are to be found in The Phantom 'Rickshaw, and Other Tales(coll 1888 India; rev 1890 UK), the title story of which is also fantasy; others appear in Life's Handicap, Being Stories of Mine Own People (coll 1891) and Many Inventions (coll 1893), which includes "The Lost Legion"(1892). The Brushwood Boy (1895; 1899 chap) is fantasy, as are the various linked and unlinked stories assembled in The Jungle Book (coll 1894) and The Second Jungle Book (coll 1895), while Just So Stories for LittleChildren (coll 1902) contains classic children's fables. "They" (1905 chap) is a ghost story. Puck of Pook's Hill (coll 1906) and its sequel, Rewards and Fairies (coll 1910), contain a series of stories about theformation and growth of Britain as told by Puck to two children. In several of his late stories, all of which are complex, elliptic, highly crafted and deeply pessimistic, RK made some ambiguous use of supernatural principles of explanation; of these, "A Madonna of the Trenches" and "The Wish House", both from 1924, are assembled along with "The Gardener" inDebits and Credits (coll 1926), which has a claim to being his finest collection. These tales are not comfortably amenable to either sf or fantasy reading, but they demonstrate the power of hinted supernatural themes in writing of high virtuosity. The Complete Supernatural Stories of Rudyard Kipling (coll 1987) conveniently assembles this category of hisoutput, as does Kipling's Fantasy (coll 1992) ed John BRUNNER. Thy Servant a Dog: Told by Boots (1930 chap), not included in either collection, is an animal fantasy of almost perverse fervour.Sf proper appears infrequently in RK's work, though "The Finest Story in the World" (1891), whose narrator encounters a case of REINCARNATION, and "A Matter of Fact" (1892), about a modern sea-serpent sighting - both assembled in ManyInventions - are arguably sf, as are "The Ship that Found Herself" (1895) and "007" (1897) from The Day's Work (coll 1898). Other early tales include "Wireless" (1902; in Traffics and Discoveries (coll 1904), in which amateur-radio experiments make communication possible between a shop assistant and John Keats; "The House Surgeon", in Actions and Reactions (coll 1909), explains a ghost in terms of PSI POWERS; "In the Same Boat"(1911), in A Diversity of Creatures (coll 1917), suggests a prenatal cause for bouts of irrational dread; "The Eye of Allah", in Debits and Credits, describes the ALTERNATE HISTORY that is almost generated when a microscope falls into the hands of medieval English churchmen; and "Unprofessional" (1930), assembled in Limits and Renewals (coll 1932), suggests thatplanetary "tides" may affect human tissue.RK's most notable and unmistakably sf stories are perhaps With the Night Mail: A Story of 2000 A.D. (1905 McClure's Magazine; 1909 chap US) and its sequel, "As Easy asA.B.C." (1912), which was collected in A Diversity of Creatures. Both tales revolve about the Aerial Board of Control, or A.B.C., which dominates the world. The first is a dramatized travelogue, depicting some incidents on a dirigible journey from London to Quebec, and is accompanied by an appendix of futuristic advertisements; in the second - a somewhat DYSTOPIAN vision of centralized government probably based on Wellsianmodels - agents of the A.B.C. fly to Chicago to deal with a revolt of the local underclass, whose demands for a return of democracy have generated attacks by the rest of the population. The A.B.C. - though not necessarily the political views it stands for - has influenced writers as far apart as Michael ARLEN and Rex WARNER. Although its reprint of With the Night Mailis incomplete, Kipling's Science Fiction (coll 1992; vt The Science Fiction Stories of Rudyard Kipling 1994) ed John Brunner is otherwisethorough in its coverage of this part of RK's work.Although RK was not an sf writer by inclination, his intense, somewhat feverish talent makes even the least characteristic of his works of more than peripheral interest to the sf reader.

   JC

   About the author: Literature on RK is extensive. Charles Carrington's Rudyard Kipling (1955) is the definitive biography, while J.M.S. Tompkins's The Art of Rudyard Kipling (1959) very competently surveys both prose and poetry. RK's own posthumous, sanitized autobiographical fragment, Something of Myself (1937), is of some interest. Angus WILSON's The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling (1977) combines biography and criticism in a sustained, intense study. Also interesting is Rudyard Kipling and his World (1977) by Kingsley AMIS.

   See also: APES AND CAVEMEN (IN THE HUMAN WORLD); DISCOVERY AND INVENTION; HISTORY OF SF; PREDICTION; TRANSPORTATION.