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Unit 8: Before a Midnight Breaks in Storm by Rudyard Kipling

Self Assessment Notes

State true or false:
1. Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay but educated in England.
2. Kipling’s literary career began with Departmental Ditties in 1886.

3. Kipling’s links with the Scouting movements were weak.
4. Before a midnight breaks in storm written by Stephen Leacock was first published as the
Dedication to The Five Nation.

5. The language in Before a midnight breaks in storm suggests that Kipling was not concerned
about any unforeseen attacks.

8.3 Summary

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an English short-story
writer, poet, and novelist. Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay on December 30th 1865,
son of John Lockwood Kipling, an artist and teacher of architectural sculpture, and his
wife Alice.
His literary career began with Departmental Ditties (1886), but subsequently he became
chiefly known as a writer of short stories.
Kipling was one of the most popular writers in England, 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, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language
writer to receive the prize, and to date he remains its youngest recipient.
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.

The Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, the newspaper which Kipling was to call “mistress
and most true love”, appeared six days a week throughout the year except for one-day
breaks for Christmas and Easter.

During the summer of 1883, Kipling visited Shimla (then known as Simla), a well-known
hill station and the summer capital of British India. By then it was established practice for
the Viceroy of India and the government to move to Simla for six months, and the town
became a “centre of power as well as pleasure”.

In November 1887, he was transferred to the Gazette’s much larger sister newspaper, The
Pioneer, in Allahabad in the United Provinces.
Kipling was discharged from The Pioneer in early 1889, after a dispute. By this time, he
had been increasingly thinking about the future. He sold the rights to his six volumes of
stories for £200 and a small royalty, and the Plain Tales for £50; in addition, from The
Pioneer, he received six-months’ salary in lieu of notice. He decided to use this money to
make his way to London, the literary centre of the British Empire.

In London, Kipling had several stories accepted by various magazine editors. He also
found a place to live for the next two years.
By September 1896, the Kiplings were in Torquay, Devon, on the southwestern coast of
England, in a hillside home overlooking the English Channel. Although Kipling did not

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