Some Uncollected Sketches from India

(1884-1888)

(edited by Thomas Pinney)

These articles were written for the Civil and Military Gazette when Kipling was a young journalist (aged only 18 in March 1884) working as assistant editor of that journal, the main English newspaper in the populous province of the Punjab. Based in the ancient city of Lahore, it was mainly written for and read by the Anglo-Indian community, administrators, soldiers, and businessmen — and their wives.

The articles have been selected and edited by Thomas Pinney, of Pomona College in California, for publication in Kipling’s India, Uncollected Sketches (Papermac, 1986). Papermac is an imprint of Macmillan, who from the 1890s onwards were Kipling’s main publishers in the United Kingdom. Thomas Pinney’s introductory notes on the articles are reproduced here with his agreement. Professor Pinney has also edited six volumes of The Letters of Rudyard Kipling, also for Macmillan, and the three-volume Cambridge Edition of The Poems of Rudyard Kipling (2013).

The Viceroy at Patiala 22 March 1884
A Week in Lahore (1) 7 May 1884
A Week in Lahore (2) 21 May 1884
Music for the Middle-Aged 21 June 1884
The Tragedy of Crusoe, C.S. 13 September 1884
The Amritsar Fair (1) 22 October 1884
The Amritsar Fair (2) 23 October 1884
A Week in Lahore (3) 6 January 1885
A Week in Lahore (4) 11 February 1885
Typhoid at Home 14 February 1885
To Meet the Ameer (1) 31 March 1885
The City of Evil Countenances 1 April 1885
To Meet the Ameer (2) 1 April 1885
To Meet the Ameer (3) 2 April 1885
To Meet the Ameer (4) 7 April 1885
To Meet the Ameer (5) 8 April 1885
Simla Notes (1) 24 June 1885
Simla Notes (2) 22 July 1885
Simla Notes(3) 29 July 1885
De Profundis 7 August 1885
My Christmas Caller, or the Prescription of Sieur Asmodeus 25 December 1885
An Armoured Train 5 January 1886
A Week in Lahore (5) 11 January 1886
A Week in Lahore (6) 19 January 1886
A Week in Lahore (7) 3 February 1886
A Popular Picnic 30 March 1886
Captain Hayes and the Horse 14 April 1886
Hobson-Jobson 15 April 1886
A Week in Lahore (8) 19 April 1886
The Queen’s Highway 13 July 1886
Out of Society 14 August 1886
The Epics of India 24 August 1886
Tommy Atkins in Burma 1 January 1887
Of Criticisms (1) 22 January 1887
Of Criticisms (2) 29 January 1887
Anglo-Indian Society 29 January 1887
The Jubilee in Lahore 18 February 1887
In Reply to the Amateur 24 February 1887
The First Empress of the East 28 February 1887
The Sutlej Bridge 2 March 1887
The Chak-Nizam Bridge 18 May 1887
Concerning One Gymkhana 11 June 1887
In the Clouds 13 June 1887
Further Developments 13 June 1887 13 June 1887
The Private Services Commission 29 June 1887
Our Change. By ‘Us’ 1 August 1887
The House of Shadows 4 August 1887
A Break on the Line 6 August 1887
An Important Discovery 17 August 1887
The Longest Way Round 30 September 1887
‘The City of the Two Creeds 1 October 1887
To Kabul and Back: Mr O’Meara’s Experiences 27 October 1887
The Great Strike (A Tale of 1910) 5 November 1887
‘The Biggest Liar in Asia’ (by One Who Knows Him) 7 November 1887
The Old Station (by the Visitor) 8 May 1888
‘Till the Day Break’ 19 May 1888