KIPLING'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 67, 20 March 1937, Page 26

KIPLING'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

It was known that for some time before his death Mr. Rudyard Kipling had been engaged on an autobiography. ' Now it has been published by Macmillans under the title of "Something of Myself: For My Friends, Known and Unkno.wn." The book is not lengthy, but it contains much of interest concerning the author's personal life in India, America, South Africa, and England, the circumstances in which several of his major works came into being, and the ideas and idealswhich give them their special form and nature. The opening chapter, called "A Very Young Person," reveals that "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" followed the story ' of Kipling's own experiences when he came to England ,as a child. Next there is the origin of "Stalky and C 0.," and so to "Seven Years' Hard" on the Lahore "Civil and Military Gazette" and the "Pioneer" of Allahabad. : Later chapters contain reminiscences of the Boer War and happy winters spent with his young family in South Africa as a neighbour and friend of Cecil Rhodes; of the discovery of his "Very-Own House," Bateman's, after a long search; and of the local influences that presided over the creation of "Puck of Pook's Hill" and "Rewards and Fairies." : .