David Gilmour - The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling

Curzon: Imperial Statesman

The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj

The British in India: Three Centuries of Ambition and Experience

The Last Leopard: A Life of Giuseppe di Lampedusa

The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions and Their Peoples

Cities of Spain

The Transformation of Spain: From Franco to the Constitutional Monarchy

Lebanon: The Fractured Country

Dispossessed: The Ordeal of the Palestinians

The Hungry Generations

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First published by John Murray (Publishers) Ltd, Great Britain 2002
Published in the United States of America by Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2002
Published in Penguin Books with a new Preface 2019

Copyright David Gilmour, 2002, 2019

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover: Colour lithograph of Rudyard Kipling by William Nicholson Desmond Banks/Bridgeman Images
Pattern from Print Collector/Getty Images

ISBN: 978-0-141-99089-7

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

To Sarah, with love and gratitude

David Gilmour is one of Britains most admired and accomplished historical writers and biographers. He is the author of Curzon (Duff Cooper Prize), The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj and the acclaimed The British in India: Three Centuries of Ambition and Experience. His other works include The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions and Their Peoples, The Last Leopard, a biography of Giuseppe di Lampedusa (Marsh Biography Award) as well as several books on the modern history of Spain and the Middle East. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a former Research Fellow of St Antonys College, Oxford.

. Imperial icons from the Struwwelpeter Alphabet

. Alice Kipling

. Lockwood Kipling with his son

. Rudyard at the beginning of his exile from India

. Kipling, the Anglo-Indian chronicler

. Lahore

. Edmonia Hill in Allahabad

. The Mall at Simla

. Kipling by William Nicholson, c. 1899, from Twelve Portraits

. Naulakha in Vermont

. Caroline Kipling by Philip Burne-Jones, 1899

. Batemans in Sussex

. Paul Kruger, Prime Minister of the Transvaal

. Perceval Landon, H.A. Taffy Gwynne, Kipling and Julian Ralph in Bloemfontein

. Cecil Rhodes

. Alfred Milner

. Leander Starr Jameson

. Kipling by William Strang

. Joseph Chamberlain

. George Curzon on his appointment as Viceroy of India

. Lord Salisbury

. Arthur Balfour

. Lord Ripon, Viceroy of India

. H.H. Asquith

. Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George

. Lord Beaverbrook

. H. Rider Haggard

. Stanley Baldwin

. Kipling at Tunbridge Wells, May 1913

. Lieutenant John Kipling of the Irish Guards

. Field Marshal Lord Roberts

. Kipling and George V visiting war graves

. The Kiplings with Andrew Bonar Law in France

. Rudyard and Carrie Kipling

The author and publishers would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce illustrations: Plate , National Portrait Gallery, London.

. Imperial icons from the Struwwelpeter Alphabet. Alice Kipling, Rudyards mother, all Celt and three-parts fire. Sage Yorkshire outlook: Lockwood Kipling with his son. Rudyard at the beginning of his exile from India. The Anglo-Indian chronicler. Lahore, that wonderful, dirty, mysterious ant hill. Confidante and sympathetic soul: Edmonia Hill in Allahabad. Social centre of the summer Raj: The Mall at Simla. Haggards true watchman of our Empire: Kipling by William Nicholson, c. 1899. Exemplifying the modern: Naulakha in Vermont. The Commandress-in-Chief : Caroline Kipling by Philip Burne-Jones, 1899. Quintessential England: Batemans in Sussex. Milners frock-coated Neanderthal: Paul Kruger, Prime Minister of the Transvaal. Friends in the Press: Perceval Landon, H.A. Taffy Gwynne (standing), RK and Julian Ralph in Bloemfontein. Cecil Rhodes, dreamer devout and Colossus of the Cape