Mark Twain in German-Language Newspapers and Periodicals

Kipling, Rudyard

Rudyard Joseph Kipling (1865-1936) was born in Bombay (today: Mumbai), but grew up in England. He is best known for his The Jungle Book novels (1894, 1895) and for the novel Kim (1901). In 1907, he received a honorary degree from Oxford University, as did Mark Twain that same year, and at the end of the year Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (see Pinney, "Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard" in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). Kipling was a fan of Mark Twain’s works and in 1889 he went to visit Twain in Elmira, NY. In a travel book, Kipling wrote: “I had hooked Mark Twain, and he was treating me as though under certain circumstances I might be an equal” (Kipling, 2011). After that initial meeting, Mark Twain and Rudyard Kipling continued to exchange letters and met on several occasions throughout their lives (see Baetzhold, "Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard" in The Mark Twain Encyclopedia, 1993). Both authors inspired each other in their writings (Krauth, 2003).

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