Rudyard Kipling's Tales of Horror and Fantasy

Rudyard Kipling

Fantasy Masterworks Volume 50

eGod

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following individuals for their help and inspiration in the compiling of this volume: Jo Fletcher, Mandy Slater, Peter Haining, Sara and Randy Broecker, Kim Newman and The Kipling Society (
www.kipling.org.uk
). Very special thanks to Mike Ashley.

Introduction: Neil Gaiman copyright © September 2006.

‘The Vampire’ from
The Vampire
(1897).

‘The Dream of Duncan Parrenness’ from
Civil and Military Gazette
, December 25, 1884.

‘The City of Dreadful Night’ from
Civil and Military Gazette
, September 10, 1885.

‘An Indian Ghost Story in England’ from
Pioneer
, December 10,1885.

‘The Phantom ’Rickshaw’ from
Quartette
, December 1885.

‘The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes’ from
Quartette
, December 1885.

‘The Unlimited Draw of Tick Boileau’ from
Quartette
, December 1885.

‘In the House of Suddhoo’ from
Civil and Military Gazette
, April 30, 1886.

‘The Bisara of Pooree’ from
Civil and Military Gazette
, March 4,1887.

‘Haunted Subalterns’ from
Civil and Military Gazette
, May 27, 1887.

‘By Word of Mouth’ from
Civil and Military Gazette
, June 10, 1887.

‘The Recurring Smash’ from
Civil and Military Gazette
, October 13,1887.

‘The Dreitarbund’ from
Civil and Military Gazette
, October 22, 1887.

‘Bubbling Well Road’ from
Civil and Military Gazette
, January 18,1888.

‘The Sending of Dana Da’ from
The Week’s News
, February 11, 1888.

‘My Own True Ghost Story’ from
The Week’s News
, February 25,1888.

‘Sleipner, Late Thurinda’ from
The Week’s News
, May 12,1888.

‘The Man Who Would Be King’ from
The Phantom ’Rickshaw & Other Eerie Tales
(1888).

‘The Solid Muldoon’ from
The Week’s News
, June 2, 1888.

‘Baboo Mookerji’s Undertaking’ from
Civil and Military Gazette
, September 1, 1888.

‘The Joker’ from
Pioneer
, January 1, 1889.

‘The Wandering Jew’ from
Civil and Military Gazette
, April 4,1889.

‘The Courting of Dinah Shadd’ from
Macmillan’s Magazine
and
Harper’s Weekly
, March 1890.

‘The Mark of the Beast’ from
Pioneer
, July 12 and 14, 1890.

‘At the End of the Passage’ from
The Boston Herald
, July 20,1890.

‘The Recrudescence of Imray’ from
Life’s Handicap: Being Stories of Mine Own People
(1891).

‘The Finances of the Gods’ from
Life’s Handicap: Being Stories of Mine Own People
(1891).

‘The Finest Story in the World’ from
The Contemporary Review
, July 1891.

‘Children of the Zodiac’ from
Harper’s Weekly
, December 1891.

‘The Lost Legion’ from
The Strand Magazine
, May 1892.

‘A Matter of Fact’ from
A Matter of Fact
(1892).

‘The Bridge-Builders’ from
Illustrated London News
, Christmas Number, 1893.

‘The Brushwood Boy’ from
Century Magazine
, December 1895.

‘The Tomb of His Ancestors’ from
Pearson’s Magazine
and
McClure’s Magazine
, December 1897.

‘Wireless’ from
Scribner’s Magazine
, August 1902.

‘They’ from
Scribner’s Magazine
, August 1904.

‘With the Night Mail: A Story of 2000 AD’from
Mclure’s Magazine
, November 1905.

‘The House Surgeon’ from
Harper’s Magazine
, September and October 1909.

‘The Knife and the Naked Chalk’ from
Rewards and Fairies
(1910).

‘In the Same Boat’ from
Harper’s Magazine
, December 1911.

‘As Easy as A.B.C.: A Tale of 2150 AD’from
Family Magazine
, February-March 1912.

‘Swept and Garnished’ from
Pall Mall Magazine
and
Century Magazine
, January 1915.

‘Mary Postgate’ from
Nash’s Magazine
and
Century Magazine
, September 1915.

‘The Village That Voted the Earth Was Flat’ from
A Diversity of Creatures
(1917).

‘A Madonna of the Trenches’ from
Pall Mall Magazine
, September 1924.

‘The Wish House’ from
Maclean’s Magazine
, October 15, 1924.

‘The Gardener’ from
McCall’sMagazine
, April 1925.

‘The Eye of Allah’ from
McCall’s Magazine
and
The Strand Magazine
, September 1925.

‘On the Gate: A Tale of ‘16’ from
McCall’s Magazine
, June 1926.

‘The Appeal’ from
Collected Verse
(1939).

Afterword: ‘Rudyard Kipling: A Life in Stories’ copyright © Stephen Jones 2006.

Your Gods and my Gods –

do you of I know which are the stronger?

—Native Proverb

INTRODUCTION

Years ago, back when I was just starting to write
Sandman,
I was interviewed, and in the interview I was asked to name some of my favourite authors. I listed happily and with enthusiasm. Several weeks later, when the interview had been printed, a fan letter arrived at DC Comics for me, and was forwarded to me. It was from three young men who wanted to know how I could possibly have listed Kipling as a favourite author, given that I was a trendy young man and Kipling was, I was informed, a fascist and a racist and a generally evil person.

It was obvious from the letter that they had never actually read any Kipling. More to the point, they had been told not to.

I doubt I am the only person who writes replies to letters in his head he never sends. In my head I wrote many pages in reply, and then I never wrote it down or sent it.

In truth, Kipling’s politics are not mine. But then, it would be a poor sort of world if one were only able to read authors who expressed points of view that one agreed with entirely. It would be a bland sort of world if we could not spend time with people who thought differently, and who saw the world from a different place. Kipling was many things that I am not, and I like that in my authors. And besides, Kipling is an astonishing writer, and was arguably at his best in the short story form.

I wanted to explain to my correspondents why ‘The Gardener’ had affected me so deeply, as a reader and as a writer – it’s a story I read once, believing every word, all the way to the end, where I understood the encounter the woman had had, then started again at the beginning, understanding now the tone of voice and what I was being told. It was a tour de force. It’s a story about loss, and lies, and what it means to be humanand to have secrets, and it can and does and should break your heart.

I learned from Kipling. At least two stories of mine (and a children’s book I am currently writing) would not exist had he not written.

Kipling wrote about people, and his people feel very real. His tales of the fantastic are chilling, or illuminating or remarkable or sad, because his people breathe and dream. They were alive before the story started, and many of them live on once the last line has been read. His stories provoke emotion and reaction – at least one of the stories in this volume revolts me on a hundred levels, and has given me nightmares, and I would not have missed reading it for worlds. Besides, I would not have told my correspondents, Kipling was a poet, as much a poet of the dispossessed as he was a poet of Empire.

I said none of those things back then, and I wished that I had. So when Steve Jones asked me to write the introduction to this book, I said yes. Because I’ve said them now, to you. Trust the tale, not the teller, as Stephen King reminded us. And the best of Rudyard Kipling’s tales are, simply, in the first rank of stories written in the English language.

Enjoy them.

Neil Gaiman

THE VAMPIRE

A fool there was and he made his prayer

(Even as you or I!)

To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair,

(We called her the woman who did not care),

But the fool he called her his lady fair—

(Even as you or I!)

Oh, the years we waste and the tears we waste,

And the work of our head and hand

Belong to the woman who did not know

(And now we know that she never could know)

And did not understand!

A fool there was and his goods he spent,

(Even as you or I!)

Honour and faith and a sure intent

(And it wasn’t the least what the lady meant),

But a fool must follow his natural bent

(Even as you or I!)

Oh, the toil we lost and the spoil we lost

And the excellent things we planned

Belong to the woman who didn’t know why

(And now we know that she never knew why)

And did not understand!

The fool was stripped to his foolish hide,

(Even as you or I!)

Which she might have seen when she threw him aside—

(But it isn’t on record the lady tried)

So some of him lived but the most of him died—

(Even as you or I!)

‘And it isn’t the shame and it isn’t the blame

That stings like a white-hot brand—

It’s coming to know that she never knew why

(Seeing, at last, she could never know why)

And never could understand!’