Literary San Francisco: Rudyard Kipling
"San Francisco is a mad City inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people whose women are of remarkable beauty," said Rudyard Kipling. Kipling was born in Bombay in 1865. Educated in England, he returned to India in 1892 and wrote for Anglo-Indian newspapers. He became famous for writing short stories of sympathetic soldiers. Works include Soldiers Three, Barrack Room Ballads, The Jungle Book, The Second Jungle Book, Captains Courageous, Just So Stories, Actions and Reactions, and Limits and Renewals. Kipling visited the City in 1889. He thought the place was barbaric but he liked its cable car system - an innovation that was only a couple of years old at the time - and its women. During his lifetime, Kipling was a Nobel Prize winning man of letters. He died in 1936. Of San Francisco Kipling added, "'Tis hard to leave."

Copyright 2001 Hank Donat
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