The most popular author of his day and a paradox who was both an assertive British imperialist and a man of sensitivity and wide reading, Rudyard Kipling is best remembered now as the author of
The Jungle Book, the
Just-So Stories, and
Kim. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907—the first Englishman to receive this prize. Fully annotated, volumes 5 and 6 conclude the publication of Kipling’s letters, a heroic effort that began with the publication of volume 1 in 1990. The sixth and last volume focuses on Kipling’s final years. Despite his increased suffering, he traveled a great deal (Egypt, France, Marienbad, and Monte Carlo, plus a tour of the Midlands in his new Rolls Royce), published three books (
Limits and Renewals, Souvenirs of France, and
Collected Dog Stories), and was made an honorary fellow of Magdalene College and a member of the Institut de France. Aware of his approaching end, he worked at two great retrospective efforts: the splendid Sussex Edition and the autobiographical
Something of Myself; both were published posthumously. On January 18, 1936, he died in Middlesex Hospital; his ashes are buried in the Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey.
Each volume contains a chronology of Kipling’s life from 1920–30 and 1931–36, respectively; volume 6 also includes errata for the first four volumes and a comprehensive index to all six volumes of this distinguished collection.