Theme: children's tales in the literary heritage of rudyard kipling contents introduction

Speculative fiction
Kipling wrote a number of speculative fiction short stories, including "The Army of a Dream," in which he sought to show a more efficient and responsible army than the hereditary bureaucracy of England at the time, and two science fiction stories: "With the Night Mail" (1905) and "As Easy As A.B.C." (1912). Both were set in the 21st century in Kipling's Aerial Board of Control universe. They read like modern hard science fiction, and introduced the literary technique known as indirect exposition, which would later become one of science fiction writer Robert Heinlein's hallmarks. This technique is one that Kipling picked up in India, and used to solve the problem of his English readers not understanding much about Indian society, when writing The Jungle Book.
Nobel laureate and beyond
In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, having been nominated in that year by Charles Oman, professor at the University of Oxford. The prize citation said it was "in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author." Nobel prizes had been established in 1901 and Kipling was the first English-language recipient. At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 1907, the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, Carl David af Wirsén, praised both Kipling and three centuries of English literature: ⁹
The Swedish Academy, in awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature this year to Rudyard Kipling, desires to pay a tribute of homage to the literature of England, so rich in manifold glories, and to the greatest genius in the realm of narrative that that country has produced in our times.
To "book-end" this achievement came the publication of two connected poetry and story collections: Puck of Pook's Hill (1906), and Rewards and Fairies (1910). The latter contained the poem "If—." In a 1995 BBC opinion poll, it was voted the UK's favourite poem. This exhortation to self-control and stoicism is arguably Kipling's most famous poem.
Such was Kipling's popularity that he was asked by his friend Max Aitken to intervene in the 1911 Canadian election on behalf of the Conservatives. In 1911, the major issue in Canada was a reciprocity treaty with the United States signed by the Liberal Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier and vigorously opposed by the Conservatives under Sir Robert Borden. On 7 September 1911, the Montreal Daily Star newspaper published a front-page appeal against the agreement by Kipling, who wrote: "It is her own soul that Canada risks today. Once that soul is pawned for any consideration, Canada must inevitably conform to the commercial, legal, financial, social, and ethical standards which will be imposed on her by the sheer admitted weight of the United States." At the time, the Montreal Daily Star was Canada's most read newspaper. Over the next week, Kipling's appeal was reprinted in every English newspaper in Canada and is credited with helping to turn Canadian public opinion against the Liberal government.
Kipling sympathised with the anti-Home Rule stance of Irish Unionists, who opposed Irish autonomy. He was friends with Edward Carson, the Dublin-born leader of Ulster Unionism, who raised the Ulster Volunteers to prevent Home Rule in Ireland. Kipling wrote in a letter to a friend that Ireland was not a nation, and that before the English arrived in 1169, the Irish were a gang of cattle thieves living in savagery and killing each other while "writing dreary poems" about it all. In his view it was only British rule that allowed Ireland to advance. A visit to Ireland in 1911 confirmed Kipling's prejudices. He wrote that the Irish countryside was beautiful, but spoiled by what he called the ugly homes of Irish farmers, with Kipling adding that God had made the Irish into poets having "deprived them of love of line or knowledge of colour." In contrast, Kipling had nothing but praise for the "decent folk" of the Protestant majority and Unionist Ulster.
Kipling wrote the poem "Ulster" in 1912, reflecting his Unionist politics. Kipling often referred to the Irish Unionists as "our party." Kipling had no sympathy or understanding for Irish nationalism, seeing Home Rule as an act of treason by the government of the Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith that would plunge Ireland into the Dark Ages and allow the Irish Catholic majority to oppress the Protestant minority. The scholar David Gilmour wrote that Kipling's lack of understanding of Ireland could be seen in his attack on John Redmond – the Anglophile leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party who wanted Home Rule because he believed it was the best way of keeping the United Kingdom together – as a traitor working to break up the United Kingdom. Ulster was first publicly read at an Unionist rally in Belfast, where the largest Union Jack ever made was unfolded. Kipling admitted it was meant to strike a "hard blow" against the Asquith government's Home Rule bill: "Rebellion, rapine, hate, Oppression, wrong and greed, Are loosed to rule our fate, By England's act and deed." Ulster generated much controversy with the Conservative MP Sir Mark Sykes – who as a Unionist was opposed to the Home Rule bill – condemning Ulster in The Morning Post as a "direct appeal to ignorance and a deliberate attempt to foster religious hate."
Kipling was a staunch opponent of Bolshevism, a position which he shared with his friend Henry Rider Haggard. The two had bonded on Kipling's arrival in London in 1889 largely due to their shared opinions, and remained lifelong friends.