The Cambridge Companion to Rudyard Kipling

More than most writers Kipling excites opposed opinions. In 1907 he was the youngest author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature but later some viewed him with hostility as an upholder of imperialism. Yet the Jungle Books are popular, the UK's favourite poem is If, and many of his phrases remain current (“east is east, and west is west,” the “female of the species”, to quote two of the several cited in this book). In his Introduction, the editor says we must be prepared to “acknowledge all the elements in play in Kipling, whether they attract or shock”....