Kipling, Rudyard

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), Nobel Prize‐winning writer of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, was largely regarded as an apologist for empire, with all its attendant sins of racism, warfare, and economic exploitation. However, Kipling's complex intellectual and aesthetic response to empire is evidenced in the generic range of his work, from imperial gothic short fiction to satirical poetry, to juvenile fiction, to experimental modernist fiction, to essays and speeches. Plain Tales from the Hills , Barrack Room Ballads , The Jungle Book anthologies, and Kim are some of his more famous titles. Empire studies and postcolonial studies have revived interest in his work.