The Long Recessional

Last updated October 02, 2025

The Long Recessional
Author	David Gilmour
Language	English
Subject	Rudyard Kipling
Genre	biography
Publisher	Pimlico
Publication date	6 February 2003
Publication place	United Kingdom
Pages	384
ISBN	9780712665186

The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling is a 2003 book by the British historian David Gilmour. It is about the writer Rudyard Kipling, particularly his relationship with British imperialism and his complex and nuanced portrayals of the nationalities and ethnic relations within the British Empire.^[1]^[2]^[3]

The book received the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography.^[4]

References

↑ Leland, John (2003). "Review of The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling". The Journal of Military History . 67 (2): 582–583. doi: 10.1353/jmh.2003.0135 .
↑ "The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling". Publishers Weekly . 29 April 2002. Retrieved 1 October 2025.
↑ McBratney, John (2004). "David Gilmour, The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002), xiii + 351 pp., $26.00 cloth" . Nineteenth-Century Prose. 31 (1). Retrieved 1 October 2025.
↑ Hensher, Philip (14 May 2003). "Exceedingly good advice from Mr Kipling". The Independent . Retrieved 1 October 2025.

External links

v t e David Gilmour
Books	Dispossessed (1980) The Last Leopard (1988) Curzon (1994) The Long Recessional (2003) The Pursuit of Italy (2011) The British in India (2018)

v t e Rudyard Kipling
Bibliography
Novels	The Light That Failed (1891) The Naulahka (co-author, Wolcott Balestier, 1892) Captains Courageous (1896) Kim (1901)
Collections	Plain Tales from the Hills (1888) Soldiers Three (1888) The Story of the Gadsbys (1888) In Black and White (1888) The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Tales (1888) Under the Deodars (1888) Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories (1888) From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel (1889) Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, poetry) Many Inventions (1893) The Jungle Book (1894) "Mowgli's Brothers" "Kaa's Hunting" "Tiger! Tiger!" "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" The Second Jungle Book (1895) "Letting in the Jungle" "Red Dog" All the Mowgli Stories (c. 1895) The Seven Seas (1896, poetry) The Day's Work (1898) Stalky & Co. (1899) Just So Stories (1902) The Five Nations (1903, poetry) Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) Rewards and Fairies (1910) The Fringes of the Fleet (1915, non-fiction) Debits and Credits (1926) Limits and Renewals (1932) Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Definitive Edition (1940) A Choice of Kipling's Verse (by T. S. Eliot, 1941)
Poems	"The Absent-Minded Beggar" "The Ballad of the 'Clampherdown'" "The Ballad of East and West" "The Beginnings" "The Bell Buoy" "The Betrothed" "Big Steamers" "Boots" "Cold Iron" "Dane-geld" "Danny Deever" "A Death-Bed" "The Female of the Species" "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" "Gentleman ranker" "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" "Gunga Din" "Hymn Before Action" "If—" "In the Neolithic Age" "The King's Pilgrimage" "The Last of the Light Brigade" "Late Came the God" "The Lowestoft Boat" "Mandalay" "The Mary Gloster" "McAndrew's Hymn" "My Boy Jack" "Recessional" "A Song in Storm" "The Song of the Women" "The Sons of Martha" "Submarines" "The Sweepers" "Tommy" "Ubique" "The White Man's Burden"
Short stories	".007" "The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly" "Baa Baa, Black Sheep" "Bread upon the Waters" "The Broken-Link Handicap" "The Butterfly that Stamped" "Consequences" "The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin" "Cupid's Arrows" "The Devil and the Deep Sea" "The Drums of the Fore and Aft" "Fairy-Kist" "False Dawn" "A Germ-Destroyer" "His Chance in Life" "His Wedded Wife" "In the House of Suddhoo" "Kidnapped" "Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris" "Lispeth" "The Man Who Would Be King" "A Matter of Fact" "Miss Youghal's Sais" "The Mother Hive" "The Other Man" "The Rescue of Pluffles" "The Ship that Found Herself" "The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo" "The Taking of Lungtungpen" "Three and – an Extra" "The Three Musketeers" "Thrown Away" "Toomai of the Elephants" "Watches of the Night" "Wireless" "Yoked with an Unbeliever"
Works about	My Boy Jack (1997 play) The Long Recessional (2003) Rudyard Kipling: A Remembrance Tale (2006 documentary) Kipling Sahib (2007 book) My Boy Jack (2007 film)
Related	Bateman's (house) Indian Railway Library Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer Iron Ring Law of the jungle Aerial Board of Control
Family	Caroline Starr Balestier Kipling (wife) Elsie Bambridge (daughter) John Kipling (son) John Lockwood Kipling (father) MacDonald sisters (mother's family) Stanley Baldwin (cousin) Georgiana Burne-Jones (aunt) Edward Burne-Jones (uncle) Philip Burne-Jones (cousin) Edward Poynter (uncle) Alfred Baldwin (uncle)

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