Being Kipling

Being Kipling exposes Rudyard Kipling's identity as he himself perceived it through the lens of a collection of works composed over a period of years and brought together in the volume Land and Sea Tales for Scouts and Guides . Dillingham uses this extraordinary collection, ostensibly put together for the inspiration of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides and frequently ignored by critics and biographers, to offer rare insight into formative events from Kipling's youth that shaped his personality and made him the man and writer that he became. The eight stories, eight poems, and three essays of Land and Sea Tales for Scouts and Guides are all examined closely both for what they reveal about Kipling's life and worldview and for their rarely perceived, but considerable literary merit.

William B. Dillingham is Charles Howard Candler Professor, Emeritus, Emory University.