Audiobook · read by volunteers
American Notes
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)
Read by Tim Bulkeley (1948-2019) · 8 chapters · 2 h 47
About the book
In 1889 a young Rudyard Kipling, already admired for his Indian stories, crossed the United States on his way home from India, and he sent back a series of travel letters for a newspaper. American Notes collects his impressions: the Golden Gate, politics, cities, trains, hotels, the Pacific coast, and the ways of people he met. Kipling plays the part of a wide-eyed Anglo-Indian visitor, expressing astonishment at features of American life, and the result is by turns funny, shrewd and surprisingly harsh. His prose is quick and full of striking images. In eight chapters and under three hours, a single LibriVox volunteer reads this travel diary from the 1880s, which still offers an entertaining view of America through a famous outsider’s eyes. The tone is quick, witty and often provocative.
Introduction
Rudyard Kipling, who lived from 1865 to 1936, was born in Bombay and became one of the most celebrated English-language writers of his time. He is the author of The Jungle Book, Kim and many stories and poems, and in 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first English writer to receive it. His reputation has been contested since his death, because of his support for the British Empire, and readers today approach him with a mix of admiration and criticism.
American Notes records a trip across the United States that Kipling made in the late 1880s. He wrote it as a series of articles, and the book appeared in 1891. The notes are the travel diary of an Anglo-Indian visitor who enjoys playing a part. Kipling affects a wide-eyed innocence, and expresses astonishment at features of American life that its citizens took for granted: the energy of the cities, the habits of politicians, the speed of the railways.
The tone is that of a young man writing for a newspaper, with exaggerations, jokes and strong opinions. Some passages are lively and others are likely to strike a modern reader as unfair, and they should be read as an expression of one man’s views. Even so, they show his gift for description and for catching a scene in a handful of words.
The recording has 8 chapters, beginning with an introduction, and lasts about two hours and fifty minutes. One LibriVox volunteer reads it. It will interest fans of Kipling and readers of travel writing alike. The book is also a record of a particular moment in transatlantic relations, seen by a writer already famous in his own country.
Public domain
Rudyard Kipling died in 1936: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text