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At a boys' boarding school on the coast of Devon, which trains boys for the army, three friends, the cunning Stalky, the Irish M'Turk and the bookish, bespectacled Beetle, fight a long war of wits against the masters, the prefects and the bullies. They trap a rival house with a dead cat, avenge themselves on a hated master, punish two bullies by bullying them, and learn the lessons of loyalty and leadership that will later serve them on the frontiers of the Empire.
Context and significance
Rudyard Kipling published the stories in 1899, based on his own years at the United Services College at Westward Ho!; Beetle is Kipling himself, and Stalky was modelled on his friend Lionel Dunsterville, later a general. Read Kipling's Kim and The Jungle Book.
About the author
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) was born in Bombay, sent to England at five to an unhappy foster home, and returned to India at sixteen to work as a journalist in Lahore. His stories of Anglo-Indian life made him famous in London in his twenties.
The Jungle Book, written in Vermont, Kim and Just So Stories became classics, and in 1907 he became the first English-language writer to win the Nobel Prize. His poem 'If—' is still widely quoted, though his support for empire makes him a controversial figure today. His only son was killed in the First World War.