A Book of Words

FULL TEXT			NOTES

I	Literature	Royal Academy Dinner	5 May 1906
II	The Claims of Art	Artists’ General Benevolent Institution:	9 May 1907
III	Values in Life	McGill University, Montreal:	12 Oct 1907
IV	Imperial Relations	Canadian Club, Toronto:	18 Oct 1907
V	Growth and Responsibility	Canadian Club, Winnipeg:	2 Oct 1907
VI	The Handicaps of Letters	Royal Literary Fund:	21 May 1908
VII	A Doctor’s Work	Middlesex Hospital:	1 Oct 1908
VIII	The Spirit of the Navy	A Naval Club:	21 Oct 1908
IX	The Ritual of Government	Brighton, Mayor’s Inaugural Dinner	9 Nov 1910
X	The Verdict of Equals	Royal Geographical Society:	May 1912
XI	The Uses of Reading	Wellington College:	25 May 1912
XII	Some Aspects of Travel	Royal Geographical Society:	Feb 1914
XIII	The War and the Schools	Winchester College:	Dec 1915
XIV	The Magic Square	Household Brigade O.C.C., Bushey:	1917
XV	The First Sailor	East Coast Patrol:	1918
XVI	England and the English<	Royal Society of St. George:	April 1920
XVII	The Scot and the War	Edinburgh University:	July 1920
XVIII	The Virtue of France	Sorbonne, Paris:	Nov 1921
XIX	A Thesis	Banquet at the Sorbonne	Nov 1921
XX	A Return to Civilisation	Strasbourg University:	Nov 1921
XXI	The Trees and the Wall	Banquet, Strasbourg University:	Nov 1921
XXII	Waking from Dreams	High Commissioner’s Lunch, Strasbourg:	Nov 1921
XXIII	Surgeons and the Soul	Royal College of Surgeons:	Feb 1923
XXIV	Independence	Rectorial Address, St. Andrews:	Oct 1923
XXV	The Classics and the Sciences	University College, Dundee:	Oct 1923
XXVI	Work in the Future	Rhodes Scholars, Oxford:	June 1924
XXVII	Shipping	U.K. Chamber of Shipping	Feb 1925
XXVIII	Stationery	Stationers’ Company:	July 1925
XXIX	Fiction	Royal Literary Society	July 1926
XXX	The Spirit of the Latin	Brazilian Academy of Letters, Rio:	March 192’7
XXXI	Our Indian Troops in France	La Bassée	Oct 1927
XXXII	Passengers at Sea	Liverpool Shipbrokers’ Benevolent Society	26 Oct 1928
XXXIII	Healing by the Stars	Royal Society of Medicine	15 Nov 1928
XXXIV	School Experiences	King’s School Junior School, Canterbury	5 Oct 1929
XXXV	France and Britain	Association France-Grande Bretagne	2 July 1931
XXXVI	Speech to Canadian Authors	Canadian Authors’ Association	12 Jul 1933
XXXVII	An Undefended Island	The Royal Society of St George	6 May 1935

Publication History

This collection, with thirty-one speeches, was published by Macmillan in 1928. The last six speeches, making thirty-seven in all, were published in the Sussex Edition, volume XXV, in 1938.

Angus Wilson (p. 255) comments:

… one of the paradoxes about Kipling is that for a man who disliked public appearances and speaking, he put some of his most deeply personal and revealing statements into his speeches. As a result, A Book of Words, that incorporates them, makes splendid reading. His speech to McGill University is no exception. It is his most direct and fierce attack upon materialism.

See also 48 further speeches identified and annotated by Thomas Pinney, and published by ELT Press North Carolina at Greensboro in 2008 as A Second Book of Words.

The Title Page

The collection carries this heading:

To Demeter the Winnower Heronax dedicates these.
And if there be any of them serviceable to a
wayfarer, let him share.

Demeter was the earth goddess of the Greeks, equivalent to Ceres in Roman mythology. This is an adaptation by Kipling of a dedicatory epigram by Diodoros Zonas (perhaps born 125 BC) in the Greek Anthology (VI.98), translated by William Roger Paton (1857-1921) and published by William Heinemann in the Loeb Classical Library. Kipling has taken the name of ‘Heronax’ to refer to himself as writer:

To Demeter the Winnower and the Seasons that tread in the furrows
Heronax from his scanty tilth offers a portion of the corn from his threshing-floor
and these various vegetables on a wooden tripod – very little from a small store;
for he owns but this little glebe on the barren hill-side.