The Eyes of Asia by Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was not yet 25 when he burst onto the literary scene in London, where his stories of Anglo-Indian life made him an instant celebrity.

Rudyard Kipling was the first English writer to win the Nobel Prize (not the Pulitzer) for literature, in 1907. Kipling is a master of the language. His writing is balanced and fluid.

Born in India in 1865 to an upper-class military family, he spent his early years in Britain and India and achieved his initial success as a reporter in India.

He traveled widely and visited the U.S. a number of times, eventually building a house in Vermont. A restless wanderer, he ultimately settled in Sussex, only to have his world tumble into ruins with the death of his son in World War I.

Kipling is very popular for his adult and childrens stories and poems.

Witty, profound, wildly funny, acerbic and occasionally savage, Rudyard Kiplings writings continue to delight readers of all ages.

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Having experienced five months of this war, I became infected with fever and a strong coldness of the stomach[rupture]. The doctor ordered me out of it altogether.

They have also cut me with knives for a wound on my leg. It is now healed but the strength is gone, and it is very frightened of the ground. I have been in many hospitals for a long time.

At this present I am living in a hospital for Indian troops in a forest-reservation called "New," which was established by a kings order in ages past.

There is no order for my return to India. I do not desire it. My Regiment has now gone out of France-to Egypt, or Africa.

My officer Sahibs are for the most part dead or in hospitals. During a railway journey when two people sit side by side for two hours one feels the absence of the other when he alights.

How great then was my anguish at being severed from my Regiment after thirty-three years! Now, however, I am finished. If I return to India I cannot drill the new men between my two crutches.

I should subsist in my village on my wound-pension among old and young who have never seen war. Here I have great consideration. Though I am useless they are patient with me.