Kipling’s World

Abstract

During Kipling’s childhood, India included not only the country known nowadays by that name but also Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the lower part of Burma (Upper Burma was annexed in 1886). His Indian years extended over the period from 1865 to 1889, with a prolonged absence during 1871–82; or, to put it another way, they fall into two periods, one of five years and three months (1865–71), from his birth to his being taken to live in England, the other of six years and five months (1882–9), from his return after leaving school to his departure for England in quest of a literary career. He paid a short visit to India in 1891, but was summoned back to England by the untimely death of Wolcott Balestier; thereafter he never saw India again. Altogether his Indian experience covers a total residence of less than twelve years. They were, however, years critical to his development as man and artist.

Places were always to be of the greatest importance to Kipling: his life was to be punctuated by critical arrivals and departures, each marked by emotions as ambivalent as they were strong. (Louis L. Cornell)