"The Three Musketeers" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling which introduces three fictional British soldiers serving in India in the later nineteenth century: the privates Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris. These characters appear in many early Kipling stories. [1] "The Three Musketeers" was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on 11 March 1887. It appeared in book form in Plain Tales from the Hills (1888).
Narrated by the three privates—mostly Mulvaney, the loquacious Irishman, and Ortheris —The Three Musketeers tells the story of how the three contrive not only to 'protest' (like the junior officers) against a proposed special parade requested by a visiting grandee, Lord Benira Trigg, but to have it cancelled and humiliate the Lord and receive a five-pound note apiece from him, for being "a honour to the British Harmy".[ citation needed ]
Trigg is a distinguished tourist, a peer on a 'fact-finding mission' (as we might now say) to write a book. "His particular vice—because he was a Radical, men said - was having garrisons turned out for his inspection ... He turned out troops once too often"—he asked for an inspection "On - a - Thursday" (the horror is that Thursday is understood to be the troops 'make and mend' day, or half-day holiday). Learoyd raises a subscription from the troops to have it cancelled, which is spent on suborning an ekka driver to take Trigg to Padsahi jhil, a large swampy tract of flooded land, about two miles off. They improve the operation by paying Buldoo, a "knowin' little divil" attached to the Artillery, to take the place of the ekka driver, and to mount a simulated abduction. Once the ekka is capsized into the jhil and Buldoo's three accomplices are banging sticks all over it, Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris 'rescue' the Lord from "about forty" dacoits ". He has to recover the next day in hospital, so the parade is cancelled. Trigg is grateful to The Three Musketeers (to the tune of three fivers), and the Colonel of the regiment is suspicious: but Mulvaney believes he would not have charged them with it had he known, as the cancellation of the Parade is welcome to all members of the regiment. [2]
This is a bibliography of works by Rudyard Kipling, including books, short stories, poems, and collections of his works.
"Danny Deever" is an 1890 poem by Rudyard Kipling, one of the first of the Barrack-Room Ballads. It received wide critical and popular acclaim, and is often regarded as one of the most significant pieces of Kipling's early verse. The poem, a ballad, describes the execution of a British soldier in India for murder. His execution is viewed by his regiment, paraded to watch it, and the poem is composed of the comments they exchange as they see him hanged.
Plain Tales from the Hills is the first collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Out of its 40 stories, "eight-and-twenty", according to Kipling's Preface, were initially published in the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, Punjab, British India between November 1886 and June 1887. "The remaining tales are, more or less, new."
The "Fore and Aft" Regiment is the nickname of the fictional "The Fore and Fit Princess Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen-Anspach's Merther-Tydfilshire Own Royal Loyal Light Infantry, Regimental District 329A." It is mentioned in "The Drums of the Fore and Aft" by Rudyard Kipling.
"The Rescue of Pluffles" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. Its first appearance in book form was in Kipling's first collection of short stories, Plain Tales from the Hills (1888); it was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on November 20, 1886. It centres on Mrs Hauksbee, and begins
Mrs. Hauksbee was sometimes nice to her own sex. Here is a story to prove this; and you can believe just as much as ever you please.
Soldiers Three is a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. The three soldiers of the title are Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris, who had also appeared previously in the collection Plain Tales from the Hills. The current version, dating from 1899 and more fully titled Soldiers Three and other stories, consists of three sections which each had previously received separate publication in 1888; Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris appear only in the first section, which is also titled Soldiers Three. The books reveal a side of the British Tommy in Afghanistan rarely seen in the Twilight of the British Empire. The soldiers comment on their betters, act the fool, but cut straight to the rawness of war in central Asia as the British began to loosen their Imperial hold.
Rudyard Kipling introduces, in the story The Three Musketeers (1888) three characters who were to reappear in many stories, and to give their name to his next collection Soldiers Three. Their characters are given in the sentence that follows: "Collectively, I think, but am not certain, they are the worst men in the regiment so far as genial blackguardism goes"—that is, they are trouble to authority, and always on the lookout for petty gain; but Kipling is at pains never to suggest that they are evil or immoral. They are representative of the admiration he has for the British Army—which he never sought to idealise as in any way perfect—as in the poems collected in Barrack-Room Ballads (1892), and also show his interest in, and respect for the "uneducated" classes. Kipling had great respect for the independence of mind, initiative and common sense of the three—and their cunning.
Mulvaney or Mulvany is a surname. Notable people with the surname:
The Indian Railway Library was an enterprise conducted in Allahabad from 1888. It was a publishing venture of A. H. Wheeler & Co., who "had the monopoly on bookstall sales on Indian railway stations" It was a series of pamphlets intended to catch the interest of railway passengers, and offer cheap "throwaway" reading material.
"The Other Man" is a short story by the British writer Rudyard Kipling, first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on 13 November 1886, in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection.
"Yoked with an Unbeliever" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on December 7, 1886, and in book form in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888. It also appears in subsequent editions of that collection.
The phrase 'watches of the night' has been used since at least the Book of Mishna: "watches of the night": the night-time; watch originally each of the three or four periods of time, during which a watch or guard was kept, into which the night was divided by the Jews and Romans". The phrase occurs several places in the Old Testament and it is suggested in the New Testament. Also found in the Dhammapada, chapter 12 (Attavaggo).
"Consequences" is the title of a short story by Rudyard Kipling, first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on December 9, 1886; and first in book form in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills (1888), and in subsequent editions of that collection.
"The Taking of Lungtungpen" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling which was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on 11 April 1887. In book form, the story appeared in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection.
"The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on 23 November 1886 in book form, in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection. The story, published when Kipling was not quite 21 years old, is a well-crafted piece of writing about an essentially schoolboy version of schadenfreude - sheer pleasure, in this case, at seeing someone 'get his comeuppance' - with an element of slapstick.
"His Wedded Wife" by Rudyard Kipling ...was published in the Civil and Military Gazette on February 25, 1887, and in book form in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection. It is one of the short stories that J. M. S. Tompkins classifies as a tale of 'revenge', but it has elements of those classified as 'farce'.
Soldiers Three is a 1951 American adventure film based upon an element of several short stories by Rudyard Kipling featuring the same trio of British soldiers, portrayed in the film by Stewart Granger, Robert Newton, and Cyril Cusack. The picture was directed by Tay Garnett.
An ekka is a one-horse carriage used in northern India. Ekkas were something like 'traps', and were commonly used as cabs, or private hire vehicles in 19th-century India. They find frequent mention in colonial literature of the period. It is also said that some kind of ekkas were used by people of Indus Valley civilisation.
A Choice of Kipling's Verse, made by T. S. Eliot, with an essay on Rudyard Kipling is a book first published in December 1941. It is in two parts. The first part is an essay by American-born British poet T. S. Eliot (1888–1965), in which he discusses the nature and stature of British poet Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). The second part consists of Eliot's selection from Kipling's poems.
Private George Flaxman of the Leicestershire Regiment was hanged at Lucknow maidan on 10 January 1887. He had been convicted by court-martial of the murder of Lance Sergeant William Carmody of the same regiment on or around 9 September 1886. The event may have inspired Rudyard Kipling's poem "Danny Deever", which describes similar events.