Publications
Kipling's India: Uncollected Sketches 1884-1888, edited by Thomas Pinney, published 1986 (xiii + 302 pp. and 8 pp. of plates, London: Macmillan, ISBN-10: 0333384679 & ISBN-13: 9780333384671) accessible at: West Sussex Libraries & East Sussex Libraries
The Letters of Rudyard Kipling: Volume 1 1872-89, edited by Thomas Pinney, published 1990 (vi + 390 pp., London: Macmillan, ISBN-10: 0333360877 & ISBN-13: 9780333360873) accessible at: West Sussex Libraries
The Letters of Rudyard Kipling: Volume 2 1890-99, edited by Thomas Pinney, published 1990 (vi + 390 pp., London: Macmillan, ISBN-10: 0333360869 & ISBN-13: 9780333360866) accessible at: West Sussex Libraries
Abstract:Kipling's letters, never before collected and edited and largely unpublished, are now presented in an annotated edition based on the more than 6,000 letters preserved in public and private collections all over the world. Planned in an edition of four volumes, the Letters reveal Kipling with a fullness and immediacy of detail unmatched by any other source. The first two volumes present the first half of Kipling's life, down to the end of the nineteenth century. They show the remarkable transformation of the young schoolboy into the seasoned Indian journalist, and the even more remarkable transformation of the Indian journalist into the famous writer, the most dazzling literary success of the 1890s. Kipling's hard years of apprenticeship, his restless travels and eager encounters with cities and men, his triumphant struggles in the literary wars, are all vividly set forth. The Letters also take Kipling through his marriage and the births of his children, through the mingled happiness and distress of his American years, to the tragedy of his daughter's death at the very highest moment of his literary fame.
Rudyard Kipling: Something of myself and other Autobiographical Writings, edited by Thomas Pinney, published 29 June 1990 (330 pp., Cambridge University Press, ISBN-10: 052135515X & ISBN-13: 9780521355155) accessible at: West Sussex Libraries
Abstract:Rudyard Kipling's autobiography, Something of Myself, was the author's last work, but it has not received the serious attention it deserves. Thomas Pinney's edition of the work, supplemented by other autobiographical pieces, aims to change that. Professor Pinney, a leading textual editor currently engaged on Kipling's letters, has consulted the available source material relating to Something of Myself. He has constructed an outline of the book's composition; described the history of its publication; established a text and a set of variants; and given a critical account of the book's design and its main themes. His annotations to the work (and to the supplementary pieces) identify references and allusions, and provide a biographical context against which Kipling's selections, omissions, and distortions may clearly be seen. The extent to which Kipling's description of his life failed to match what actually happened is extraordinary. Two of the additional items presented here (Kipling's Indian diary of 1885 and the illustrations he made for his autobiographical story, 'Baa Baa, Black Sheep') are previously unpublished. Pinney shows how they, and other forms of autobiographical writing, reflect upon or complicate the narrative of Something of Myself. This carefully prepared edition sheds new light on Kipling as a man and writer.
The Letters of Rudyard Kipling: Volume 3 1900-10, edited by Thomas Pinney, published 11 November 1996 (504 pp., London: Macmillan, ISBN-10: 033363733X & ISBN-13: 9780333637333) accessible at: West Sussex Libraries
Abstract:Volume 3 of Kipling's Letters covers the decade 1900-10, the years in which Kipling published Kim, Just So Stories, The Five Nations, Traffics and Discoveries, Puck of Pook's Hill, Actions and Reactions, and Rewards and Fairies. The narrative of his life includes the years in South Africa during and after the Boer War, his move to Bateman's in Sussex, his increasing involvement in the politics of preparedness and the growing record of his honours, culminating in the Nobel Prize.
The Letters of Rudyard Kipling: Volume 4 1911-19, edited by Thomas Pinney, published 21 December 1998 (624 pp., London: Macmillan, ISBN-10: 0333439899 & ISBN-13: 9780333439890) accessible at: West Sussex Libraries
Abstract:The fourth volume of Kipling's letters takes the story of his life from the end of the Edwardian era through the Great War. The years just before the war saw the publication of Rewards and Fairies and Songs from Books. During the war he published no new fiction but only the work he did as war correspondent and propagandist: France at War, The Fringes of the Fleet, The Eyes of Asia, among others. In 1915 his only son, John, was killed. Kipling's last volume of poems, The Years Between (1919), embodies the suffering and bitterness of these years.
The Letters of Rudyard Kipling: Volume 5 1920-30, edited by Thomas Pinney, published 2004 (viii + 585 pp., London: Macmillan, ISBN-10: 1403921318 & ISBN-13: 9781403921314) accessible at: West Sussex Libraries
Abstract:This volume focuses on Kipling's life through the post-war decade of the 1920s.
The Letters of Rudyard Kipling: Volume 6 1931-36, edited by Thomas Pinney, published 2004 (ix + 527 pp., London: Macmillan, ISBN-13: 9781403921321)
Abstract:This new volume of The Letters of Rudyard Kipling , fully annotated, is the last of six volumes which form the first comprehensive publication of Kipling's letters, and covers the last five years of his life. This volume also contains a comprehensive index to all six volumes of the edition.