Writings on Writing

This study, which includes many unpublished private letters and papers, details Kipling's hitherto neglected role as literary critic.

Rudyard Kipling (Author), Sandra Kemp (Edited by), Lisa Lewis (Edited by)

9780521111751, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 June 2009

244 pages, 7 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.36 kg

Unlike his contemporaries Virginia Woolf and Henry James, Kipling always denied he was a critic. But his letters, speeches, and stories are full of comments on writing and writers. This collection, including many formerly unpublished private letters and papers, details Kipling's response to the commercialisation of literature and the emerging role of the writer as celebrity in the turbulent literary world of the 1890s and beyond. They reveal a mind intensely concerned with questions of literary value, with language and imagination, with truth, realism, and romanticism. Kipling's fame made him a significant spokesperson for important segments of the reading public - the soldiers, engineers, and functionaries central to Britain's imperial expansion. He profoundly influenced English literary language and our perception of English national character. This book offers access to the private and public history of a writer whose continuing influence is still a matter of fierce controversy.

1. Portrait of the artist as a young man
2. Aesthetics
3. How to write: ingredients and methods
4. History and contemporary culture
5. The commerce of literature
6. The writer and his critics
7. Afterword
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary essays [DNF]