What do you think?
Rate this book
Kipling Selection #1
Kipling: A Selection of His Stories and Poems - volume 1
Includes: Kim; The Jungle Book; Just So Stories; and Puck of Pook's Hill
531 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1956
15 people are currently reading
305 people want to read
About the author
Rudyard Kipling
6,988 books3,626 followersJoseph Rudyard Kipling was a journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist.
Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King (1888). His poems include Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), The Gods of the Copybook Headings (1919), The White Man's Burden (1899), and If— (1910). He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story; his children's books are classics of children's literature; and one critic described his work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift".
Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry James said: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known." In 1907, at the age of 41, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, both of which he declined.
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907 "in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author."
Kipling kept writing until the early 1930s, but at a slower pace and with much less success than before. On the night of 12 January 1936, Kipling suffered a haemorrhage in his small intestine. He underwent surgery, but died less than a week later on 18 January 1936 at the age of 70 of a perforated duodenal ulcer. Kipling's death had in fact previously been incorrectly announced in a magazine, to which he wrote, "I've just read that I am dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers."
Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King (1888). His poems include Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), The Gods of the Copybook Headings (1919), The White Man's Burden (1899), and If— (1910). He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story; his children's books are classics of children's literature; and one critic described his work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift".
Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry James said: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known." In 1907, at the age of 41, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, both of which he declined.
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907 "in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author."
Kipling kept writing until the early 1930s, but at a slower pace and with much less success than before. On the night of 12 January 1936, Kipling suffered a haemorrhage in his small intestine. He underwent surgery, but died less than a week later on 18 January 1936 at the age of 70 of a perforated duodenal ulcer. Kipling's death had in fact previously been incorrectly announced in a magazine, to which he wrote, "I've just read that I am dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 2, 2021
"Inherited" both volumes of this collection from my mom when she passed away. Have read "Kim," "The Jungle Book" and probably most of the "Just So Stories" (to my kids) separately, but don't have any real interest in "Puck of Pook's Hill," so can't consider this truly read.
I am however, looking forward to reading the rest of the second volume, which includes the bulk of Kipling's short stories and poems, as well as his autobiographical "Something of Myself," his last work.
I am however, looking forward to reading the rest of the second volume, which includes the bulk of Kipling's short stories and poems, as well as his autobiographical "Something of Myself," his last work.
Read
December 26, 2017The very first stories to awaken the story center in my baby brain...
Before I could read, my father would read aloud "The Cat That Walked By Himself" with all its magical, repetitious language, including that awesome beginning: "Hear and attend and listen..." I remember tracing that mysterious giant first letter of the story, the H which is superimposed on what looks like a bone. And believing that when my father read it with all its "O best beloveds" as Kipling wrote it, that was him addressing me.
I still have the original book, my father's, 1909 edition, with all the mysterious illustrations.
Before I could read, my father would read aloud "The Cat That Walked By Himself" with all its magical, repetitious language, including that awesome beginning: "Hear and attend and listen..." I remember tracing that mysterious giant first letter of the story, the H which is superimposed on what looks like a bone. And believing that when my father read it with all its "O best beloveds" as Kipling wrote it, that was him addressing me.
I still have the original book, my father's, 1909 edition, with all the mysterious illustrations.
September 7, 2023
I picked this book up at a church book sale back in college, and had it sitting around on various shelves before starting to read it a few years ago. Then I set it aside again, and got back to it recently.
Kim is a novel about an orphan boy of Irish parentage who grows up in India in the late nineteenth century, and variously hangs out with a lama, attends an English boarding school, and spies for the British. He explores a lot of India, and there's a lot about the various cultures living there. Kipling was notoriously pro-colonialism (white man's burden and all that), but still seemed to have some amount of respect for the native population.
This book contains all of the Mowgli stories from both volumes of The Jungle Book, as well as the related poems, but none of the other stuff. As I've known the Disney film since childhood, these were the ones I was most curious about. It has a rather different tone than the movie, slower and more philosophical. The animals have their own law that allows for them to live together and make truces with each other, even while some of them eat others. There's an emphasis on predators asking permission to hunt. Mowgli is able to gain influence over most of the animals, a bit of pro-human propaganda. Bagheera and Baloo are both here, but the former has more of a parental relationship toward Mowgli, while the latter is a serious teacher of the law, kind of the reverse of how Disney presented them. Then again, Baloo is still lazy. Kaa is actually a friend of Mowgli's, who helps Bagheera and Baloo rescue the man-cub from the Bandar-Log monkeys. There's no insistence from the panther that Mowgli leave the jungle either; he does end up going to live with humans, but it's his own decision after his jungle friends have grown old and/or died. At one point, the elephant Hathi tells a fable about how tigers got their stripes, and why they sometimes kill for fun.
I was already familiar with the Just So Stories, as I had a book of them when I was a kid, with full-color illustrations. I remember the bit about the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River in "The Elephant's Child." There are other specific locations mentioned in these stories, the one about the whale using not a place name but a latitude and longitude, fifty degrees north and forty west, east of Newfoundland. Again, this volume omits a few of the stories, the ones that don't focus on animals. They're a modern take on old fables explaining why something is the way it is, almost a parody of the genre, although I suspect there was an element of humor to the old tales as well. The whale gets a small throat because a shipwrecked mariner ties a grating into it with his suspenders, and the animal imitates a train conductor. The rhinoceros has loose skin because a man he's stolen from drops cake crumbs in it. They tend to use a single animal character as a stand-in for all animals of its type, again a staple of the genre. These started as bedtime stories Kipling told his daughter, which she insisted he tell exactly the same way every time, hence the title.
Finally, Puck of Pook's Hill is about two children meeting Puck, who goes on to pull various figures from English history and mythology into the present to tell their stories. These include Weyland the blacksmith, a Norman knight, a Roman centurion, and a Jewish moneylender. There's a connection between many of the tales. It's an enjoyable idea with some clever bits, like Puck explaining that gods don't usually last in England. It's also interesting that the Roman identified Puck as a faun. Overall, though, it seemed a bit slow, and a lot of it was just monologue from the visitors, without much interaction with the kids.
Kim is a novel about an orphan boy of Irish parentage who grows up in India in the late nineteenth century, and variously hangs out with a lama, attends an English boarding school, and spies for the British. He explores a lot of India, and there's a lot about the various cultures living there. Kipling was notoriously pro-colonialism (white man's burden and all that), but still seemed to have some amount of respect for the native population.
This book contains all of the Mowgli stories from both volumes of The Jungle Book, as well as the related poems, but none of the other stuff. As I've known the Disney film since childhood, these were the ones I was most curious about. It has a rather different tone than the movie, slower and more philosophical. The animals have their own law that allows for them to live together and make truces with each other, even while some of them eat others. There's an emphasis on predators asking permission to hunt. Mowgli is able to gain influence over most of the animals, a bit of pro-human propaganda. Bagheera and Baloo are both here, but the former has more of a parental relationship toward Mowgli, while the latter is a serious teacher of the law, kind of the reverse of how Disney presented them. Then again, Baloo is still lazy. Kaa is actually a friend of Mowgli's, who helps Bagheera and Baloo rescue the man-cub from the Bandar-Log monkeys. There's no insistence from the panther that Mowgli leave the jungle either; he does end up going to live with humans, but it's his own decision after his jungle friends have grown old and/or died. At one point, the elephant Hathi tells a fable about how tigers got their stripes, and why they sometimes kill for fun.
I was already familiar with the Just So Stories, as I had a book of them when I was a kid, with full-color illustrations. I remember the bit about the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River in "The Elephant's Child." There are other specific locations mentioned in these stories, the one about the whale using not a place name but a latitude and longitude, fifty degrees north and forty west, east of Newfoundland. Again, this volume omits a few of the stories, the ones that don't focus on animals. They're a modern take on old fables explaining why something is the way it is, almost a parody of the genre, although I suspect there was an element of humor to the old tales as well. The whale gets a small throat because a shipwrecked mariner ties a grating into it with his suspenders, and the animal imitates a train conductor. The rhinoceros has loose skin because a man he's stolen from drops cake crumbs in it. They tend to use a single animal character as a stand-in for all animals of its type, again a staple of the genre. These started as bedtime stories Kipling told his daughter, which she insisted he tell exactly the same way every time, hence the title.
Finally, Puck of Pook's Hill is about two children meeting Puck, who goes on to pull various figures from English history and mythology into the present to tell their stories. These include Weyland the blacksmith, a Norman knight, a Roman centurion, and a Jewish moneylender. There's a connection between many of the tales. It's an enjoyable idea with some clever bits, like Puck explaining that gods don't usually last in England. It's also interesting that the Roman identified Puck as a faun. Overall, though, it seemed a bit slow, and a lot of it was just monologue from the visitors, without much interaction with the kids.
September 19, 2018
This set of books in one volume has these greats: Kim, Jungle Book, Just So Stories, and Puck Of Pook’s Hill. All are marvelous and far surpass any movie made to represent them. Of course, Just So Stories is a set of “stand alone” stories which even young elementary children might like. The others could be read by or to older children. Kim might be the most challenging. Rudyard Kipling gave us so much meat for our imaginations in these stories! If you’ve confined yourself to the Disney version of Jungle Book (as charming as it was), you want to actually read what Mowgli was like in Kipling’s mind. I guess if I had to boil it down to a concept, I would say that Kipling has the ability to show us how incredible humans (young people get the limelight in his stories) can be in the face of hardship and challenge.
September 10, 2025
Kipling maybe a classic author, but he is still underappreciated. Just So Stories and Puck of Pooks Hill are just amazing works of funny shirt stories/myths. The Jungle Book is also great fun and much more brutal and violent then the Disney version which I just think makes it better. Kim is not as great and is probably the hardest to read, but is still amazingly sweet and a top tier story, just not as good as the other masterpieces.
April 17, 2018
It isn't a bad book actually a lot of classics. Two of my favorites in this volume one are Jungle Book and Puck of Pook's Hill. There is also Kim and many poems of differet subjects. It takes a bit to read it all. I think I will do some light reading before going on to Kipling Volume II.
February 6, 2023
This is a wonder book of stories especially for children
Written in an old English style
The jungle book is especially great
Also had several poems
I have several of his books including soldiers stories
Written in an old English style
The jungle book is especially great
Also had several poems
I have several of his books including soldiers stories
July 30, 2025
Includes KIM (didn't get into it); excerpts of JUNGLE BOOK (in another Kipling book reading); and miscellaneous shorts that aren't memorable. Like the pictures.
September 26, 2022
Entertaining, wise, funny - all apply to Kipling's short stories. The guy doesn't only have a fantastic name. His range as an artist is incredible. There is the delicacy of "They," a story shot through with Kipling's profound grief at the loss of his daughter, Josephine, in 1899; there is the cultural warning of "The Mother Hive," and there is, always, India.
Here's one of the many passages I love in "They": "As I reached the crest of the Downs I felt the soft air change, saw it glaze under the sun; and, looking down at the sea, in that instant beheld the blue of the Channel turn through polished silver and dulled steel to dingy pewter. A laden collier hugging the coast steered outward for deeper water, and, across copper-colored haze, I saw sails rise one by one on the anchored fishing-fleet. In a deep dene(cq?) behind me an eddy of sudden wind drummed through sheltered oaks, and spun aloft the fine dry sample of autumn leaves. When I reached the beach road the sea-fog fumed over the brickfields, and the tide was telling all the groyness(cq?) of the gale beyond Ushant. In less than an hour summer England vanished in chill grey. We were again the shut island of the North, all the ships of the world bellowing at our perilous gates; and between their outcries ran the piping of bewildered gulls. My cap dripped with moisture, the folds of the rug held it in pools or sluiced it away in runnels, and the salt-rime stuck to my lips."
(I should note I didn't find the exact compilation I'm reading on goodreads - this review is based on stories in "Rudyard Kipling. Short Stories: volume 1 'A Sahibs' War and Other Stories.'" It's a Penguin Modern Classic paperback I picked up somewhere for less than the $2.50 retail price. So who knows what 'groyness' means).
Even the stories here that have no clear point, or the point eluded me, are fun and at times touching, such as "A Habitation Enforced." But Kipling usually has "a point" and I'd argue that for even those who disagree with it his writing is forceful, at times elegant, and almost invariably enjoyable. Highly recommended.
Here's one of the many passages I love in "They": "As I reached the crest of the Downs I felt the soft air change, saw it glaze under the sun; and, looking down at the sea, in that instant beheld the blue of the Channel turn through polished silver and dulled steel to dingy pewter. A laden collier hugging the coast steered outward for deeper water, and, across copper-colored haze, I saw sails rise one by one on the anchored fishing-fleet. In a deep dene(cq?) behind me an eddy of sudden wind drummed through sheltered oaks, and spun aloft the fine dry sample of autumn leaves. When I reached the beach road the sea-fog fumed over the brickfields, and the tide was telling all the groyness(cq?) of the gale beyond Ushant. In less than an hour summer England vanished in chill grey. We were again the shut island of the North, all the ships of the world bellowing at our perilous gates; and between their outcries ran the piping of bewildered gulls. My cap dripped with moisture, the folds of the rug held it in pools or sluiced it away in runnels, and the salt-rime stuck to my lips."
(I should note I didn't find the exact compilation I'm reading on goodreads - this review is based on stories in "Rudyard Kipling. Short Stories: volume 1 'A Sahibs' War and Other Stories.'" It's a Penguin Modern Classic paperback I picked up somewhere for less than the $2.50 retail price. So who knows what 'groyness' means).
Even the stories here that have no clear point, or the point eluded me, are fun and at times touching, such as "A Habitation Enforced." But Kipling usually has "a point" and I'd argue that for even those who disagree with it his writing is forceful, at times elegant, and almost invariably enjoyable. Highly recommended.
September 12, 2016
In honour of Peter Bellamy.
March 4, 2011
I only read, "The Jungle Book" and I truly enjoyed it. He did a great job of capturing the ferocity of the animals along with their nobler emotions. I was too dumb to figure out all his politics, thus I enjoyed the story part. I read a few of his fables as well and there were purty good.
Read
September 10, 2009Ya can't go wrong with Kipling. a good portrait of life in India under British Colonial Rule. Sometimes funny, sometimes brutally flippant and calloused, but really some good stories!
December 13, 2016
I'm just not a Kipling girl
March 15, 2024
I liked the short stories better than the poetry. But my favor part was the short memoir titled Something of Myself.
Read
March 2, 2009JAR6-Kip
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews