Stalky & Co. (1899). By: Rudyard Kipling: Novel (illustrated)

Stalky & Co. is a novel by Rudyard Kipling, about adolescent boys at a British boarding school. It was first published in 1899 (following serialisation in the Windsor Magazine). Reflecting its origins, the novel is episodic in nature, with self-contained chapters. It is set at an unnamed school referred to as the College or the Coll., which is based on the United Services College in Devon, which Kipling attended. The character Beetle, one of the main trio, is partly based on Kipling himself, while the charismatic character Stalky is based on Lionel Dunsterville, M’Turk is based on George Charles Beresford and Mr King is based on William Carr Crofts. The stories have elements of revenge, the macabre, bullying and violence, and hints about sex, making them far from childish or idealised. For example, Beetle pokes fun at an earlier, more earnest, boys’ book, Eric, or, Little by Little, thus flaunting his more worldly outlook. There is also some information about Stalky in later life. In his essay entitled ＂What We Can Expect of the American Boy,＂ Teddy Roosevelt disdained this novel, calling it ＂a story which ought never to have been written, for there is hardly a single form of meanness which it does not seem to extol, or of school mismanagement which it does not seem to applaud.＂........ Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( 30 December 1865 - 18 January 1936) was an English 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 42, 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. Kipling’s subsequent reputation has changed according to the political and social climate of the age and the resulting contrasting views about him continued for much of the 20th century. George Orwell called him a ＂prophet of British imperialism＂. Literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote: ＂[Kipling] is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled. But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognised as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with.＂