Something of Myself and Other Autobiographical Writings

In his last work, Something of Myself, Rudyard Kipling reflects on his life and the basis of his art.

Rudyard Kipling (Author), Thomas Pinney (Edited by)

9781107693500, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 3 December 2013

330 pages, 10 b/w illus.
21.5 x 13.7 x 1.6 cm, 0.48 kg

Rudyard Kipling has been described as 'one of the few complete originals in English literature'. In his last work, Something of Myself, he reflects on his life and the basis of his art. Yet paradoxically this ostensibly autobiographical work (as an early critic pointed out) actually discloses very little of himself. Thomas Pinney's revealing edition now uncovers the extraordinary extent to which Kipling's account of his life fails to match the biographical facts, in a series of selections, omissions and distortions. Illustrated with Kipling's own satirical drawings from the manuscripts, and brought together with his other autobiographical writings (some previously unpublished), this fascinating book sheds new light on the intriguing relationship between Kipling's life and work.

Introduction
Abbreviations and short titles
Something of Myself (1937): 1. A very young person
2. The school before its time
3. Seven years' hard
4. The interregnum
5. The committee of ways and means
6. South Africa
7. The very-own house
8. Working-tools
'Baa, Baa, Black Sheep' (1888)
'My first book' (1892)
'An English School' (1893)
Kipling's diary, 1885
Notes
Glossary of Anglo-Indian words and phrases
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Biography: literary [BGL], Autobiography: general [BGA]