ABSTRACT
Between 1887 and 1889, Kipling lived, though not continuously thanks to his frequent work trips for the Pioneer around North India, in Allahabad, where he wrote some of his finest early stories. This chapter deals with three related aspects of his time in the North Indian provincial capital. It describes British Allahabad as Kipling would have known it in the years he was based there. The chapter examines the importance both of Kipling’s friendship with the Hills, Professor S.A. Hill and especially his American wife Edmonia, whose letters home about their young writer friend constitute a uniquely detailed record of the young man, and of Kipling’s journalistic work for the Pioneer newspaper and its effect on his writing. It discusses Kipling’s Freemasonry as a member of the Allahabad Lodge and in his story “The Man Who Would Be King”, his parody or parable of empire.
