The Light That Failed is published in a fourteen-chapter version.
| 1892 | Alfred, Lord Tennyson dies. Kipling marries Caroline Balestier, an American and the sister of his friend and agent Wolcott Balestier. The couple plan a trip around the world, and travel as far as Japan. Their voyage is in terrupted because the bank that holds Kipling’s savings fails and because Caroline becomes pregnant. The cou ple sets up house in Brattleboro, Vermont, the Balestiers’ hometown, where Kipling begins to compose the Jungle Book stories. Kipling publishes Barrack-Room Ballads, a book of verse celebrating army life in the British Empire (including the famous “Gunga Din,” about a Hindu water carrier for a British Indian regi ment, and “Fuzzy Wuzzy”), and a second novel, The Naulahka, written in collaboration with Wolcott Balestier. The Kiplings’ first child, Josephine, is born. |
| 1893 | Many Inventions, a volume of Kipling’s short stories, is published. |
| 1894- | Two collections of animal stories for children set in |
| 1895 | India, The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book, featur ing such memorable characters as Mowgli, Baloo, and Bagheera, are published. |
| 1896 | The Kiplings’ second child, Elsie, is born. A violent ar gument with his unstable brother-in-law Beatty Balestier prompts Kipling to move back to England. |
| 1897 | Kipling settles in Rottingdean, on the Sussex coast. He publishes Captains Courageous, a seafaring novel. His son, John, is born. |
| 1898- 1907 | Kipling spends winters in South Africa and forms a close relationship with another British imperialist, Cecil Rhodes. |
| 1899 | By this time the British Empire includes almost a quar ter of the world’s land surface and population. The Boer War, a conflict of the South African Republic and Orange Free State against Great Britain, begins and continues until 1902. Kipling visits the United States for the last time, survives a near-fatal bout of pneumonia, and experiences the sudden death of his elder daugh ter, Josephine. Stalky & Co., based on the time he spent at the United Services College, is published. From Sea to Sea is published (see entry for 1889). Joseph Conrad publishes his novel Heart of Darkness. |
| 1900 | The Kipling Reader, a selection of his works, is published. Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim appears. |
| 1901 | Kim, Kipling’s last and best novel, becomes a best-seller; it tells the story of an Irish orphan raised in India who eventually becomes a member of the English Secret Ser vice. Queen Victoria of England dies and Edward VII becomes king; U.S. president William McKinley is assas sinated and succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt. Guglielmo Marconi transmits the first wireless mes sages. German writer Thomas Mann publishes Buddenbrooks and Swedish playwright August Strindberg The Dance of Death. Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi (La Traviatia, Rigoletto, etc.) and French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec die. French novelist and critic André Malraux and American film producer Walt Disney are born. |
| 1902 | Kipling purchases a house known as Bateman’s in Bur wash, Sussex, where he writes, among other works, Just So Stories, a collection of fables for children, published this year. The Boer War ends in May with the Treaty of Vereeniging. The Tale of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter, appears. |
| 1903 | Jack London’s The Call of the Wild appears. |
| 1906 | Kipling publishes Puck of Pook’s Hill, a volume of poems and historical stories intended mainly for children. A Liberal government is elected in Great Britain. Kipling becomes critical of the regime’s pacifist sentiments and actively supports a militarized government. |
| 1907 | Kipling becomes the first English author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. In spite of this honor, he is rapidly losing the favor of the British literary establish ment. He visits Canada. |
| 1908 | Lord Robert Baden-Powell, Kipling’s friend since the 1880s, founds the Boy Scouts movement. He incorpo rates names and ideals from The Jungle Books and Kim into much of the literature and philosophy regarding the Boy Scouts. |
| 1910 | Kipling’s most-quoted poem, “If,” is published in a col lection titled Rewards and Fairies. |
| 1911 A | School History of England, a collaborative work by Kipling and the historian C. R. L.
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