Rudyard Kipling’s Early Association with Journalism

Abstract

Accident plays a part in the lives of all men, be they small or great; and it was accident rather than any natural bent for the profession that made Rudyard Kipling start his career as a journalist. He was only seventeen at the time and though he was brimful of confidence in his own powers, with a ready wit in conversation and with a certain aptitude for story-telling, there was nothing to indicate that he was possessed of exceptional literary gifts. He owed his introduction to journalism indeed, to the simple facts that a career of some sort had to be found for him and that his parents, Mr and Mrs Lockwood Kipling, were extremely popular members of Lahore society and were able without much difficulty to persuade the then onwners of the two Indian papers, the Civil and Military Gazette of Lahore and The Pioneer for Allahabad — the writer’s own father, Sir George Allen, and Sir James Walker¹-to find him a billet as ‘assistant editor’.

Kipling Journal, no. 1 (Mar 1927) 31–2.