Books with title The phantom 'rickshaw and other tales

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), short-story writer, novelist and poet, was the first Englishman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (1907). Published in 1888, 'The Phantom 'Rickshaw' is a short story set in Simla, a popular tourist destination in British India. The story is a first person account of a man named Jack who is haunted by his past. CONTENTS: The Phantom 'Rickshaw, My Own True Ghost Story, The Strange Ride Of Morrowbie Jukes, The Man Who Would Be King, and "The Finest Story In The World".

The Phantom Rickshaw: and Other Ghost Stories by Rudyard Kipling, 1888. Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story; his children’s books are classics of children’s literature, and one critic described his work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift". In 1907, at the age of 42, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize and its youngest recipient to date.

The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Ghost Stories is a classic collection of gripping Rudyard Kipling ghost stories that includes the following titles: The Phantom 'Rickshaw, My Own True Ghost Story, The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes, The Man Who Would Be King, and "The Finest Story in The World" The Phantom 'Rickshaw After an affair with a Mrs. Agnes Keith-Wessington in Simla, the narrator, Jack, repudiates her and eventually becomes engaged to Miss Kitty Mannering. Yet Mrs. Wessington continually reappears in Jack's life, begging him to reconsider, insisting that it was all just a mistake. But Jack wants nothing to do with her and continues to spurn her. Eventually Mrs. Wessington dies, much to Jack's relief. However, some time thereafter he sees her old rickshaw and assumes that someone has bought it. Then, to his astonishment, the rickshaw and the men pulling it pass through a horse, revealing themselves to be phantoms, bearing the departed ghost of Mrs. Wessington. This leads Jack into increasingly erratic behavior which he tries to cover up by concocting increasingly elaborate lies to assuage Kitty's suspicions. Eventually a Dr. Heatherlegh takes him in, supposing the visions to be the result of disease or madness. Despite their efforts, Kitty and her family become increasingly suspicious and eventually call off the engagement. Jack loses hope and begins wandering the city aimlessly, accompanied by the ghost of Mrs. Wessington. My Own True Ghost Story, The narrator, while staying at a dâk-bungalow in Katmal, India, hears someone in the next room playing billiards. He assumes that it is a group of doolie-bearers who've just arrived. The next morning he complains, only to learn that there were no coolies in the dâk-bungalow the night before. The owner then tells him that ten years ago it was a billiard-hall. An engineer who'd been fond of the billiard hall had died somewhere far from it and they suspected that it was his ghost that occasionally came to visit it. The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes One evening Morrowbie Jukes, an Englishman, is feeling a bit feverish and the barking of the dogs outside his tent is upsetting him. So he mounts his horse in order to pursue them. The horse bolts and they eventually fall into a sandy ravine on the edge of a river. He awakens the next morning to find himself in a village of the living dead, where people who appear to have died of, for instance, cholera, but who revived when their bodies were about to be burned, are imprisoned. He quickly learns that it is impossible to climb out because of the sandy slope. And the river is doubly treacherous with quicksand and a rifleman who will try to pick them off. The Man Who Would Be King The narrator, a journalist, meets two colorful characters, Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnahan, while on a train. Later they seek him out at his printing press in Lahore, for books or maps of Kafiristan. He then plays witness to their vow to each other to become kings of Kafiristan, a venture which he sees as ill-advised. Two years later Peachey returns and informs the narrator that they indeed reached Kafiristan. While there, were seen as gods and eventually Daniel is made king. They taught the Kafiristanis how to use rifles and military tactics. Eventually Dravot decides to take a Kafiristani woman to wife. In her terror she bites him. Upon seeing him bleed, the priests declare him not to be a god and the Kafiristanis immediately seek their deaths. One clan chief, whom they call "Billy Fish" helps them to escape but eventually they are caught and Daniel is thrown into a gorge to his death. They crucified Peachey but then let him go when he survived. The narrator puts Peachey in an asylum where he dies soon thereafter.

‘The Phantom Rickshaw & Other Eerie Tales' brings together four of Kipling's most-loved short stories. Each deals with events that can't quite be explained away, whether a traditional ghost story, a terrifyingly realistic nightmare or a sumptuous and lavish romance. Powerful, exotic and extravagant, these tales are rated, by some, to be the best stories Kipling ever wrote, with ‘The Man Who Would Be King' being hailed as the finest story in the English language.

One of the few advantages that India has over England is a great Knowability. After five years' service a man is directly or indirectly acquainted with the two or three hundred Civilians in his Province, all the Messes of ten or twelve Regiments and Batteries, and some fifteen hundred other people of the non-official caste. In ten years his knowledge should be doubled, and at the end of twenty he knows, or knows something about, every Englishman in the Empire, and may travel anywhere and everywhere without paying hotel-bills. Globe-trotters who expect entertainment as a right, have, even within my memory, blunted this open-heartedness, but none the less to-day, if you belong to the Inner Circle and are neither a Bear nor a Black Sheep, all houses are open to you, and our small world is very, very kind and helpful.

"The most amazing miracles was at Lodge next night. One of the old priests was watching us continuous, and I felt uneasy, for I knew we'd have to fudge the Ritual, and I didn't know what the men knew. The old priest was a stranger come in from beyond the village of Bashkai. The minute Dravot puts on the Master's apron that the girls had made for him, the priest fetches a whoop and a howl, and tries to overturn the stone that Dravot was sitting on. 'It's all up now,' I says. 'That comes of meddling with the Craft without warrant!' Dravot never winked an eye, not when ten priests took and tilted over the Grand Master's chair—which was to say, the stone of Imbra. The priest begins rubbing the bottom end of it to clear away the black dirt, and presently he shows all the other priests the Master's Mark, same as was on Dravot's apron, cut into the stone. Not even the priests of the temple of Imbra knew it was there. The old chap falls flat on his face at Dravot's feet and kisses 'em. 'Luck again,' says Dravot, across the Lodge, to me; 'they say it's the missing Mark that no one could understand the why of. We're more than safe now.' Then he bangs the butt of his gun for a gavel and says, 'By virtue of the authority vested in me by my own right hand and the help of Peachey, I declare myself Grand Master of all Freemasonry in Kafiristan in this the Mother Lodge o' the country, and King of Kafiristan equally with Peachey!' At that he puts on his crown and I puts on mine,—I was doing Senior Warden,—and we opens the Lodge in most ample form. It was an amazing miracle! The priests moved in Lodge through the first two degrees almost without telling, as if the memory was coming back to them. After that Peachey and Dravot raised such as was worthy—high priests and Chiefs of far-off villages. Billy Fish was the first, and I can tell you we scared the soul out of him. It was not in any way according to Ritual, but it served our turn. We didn't raise more than ten of the biggest men, because we didn't want to make the Degree common. And they was clamouring to be raised. Contents THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY THE STRANGE RIDE OF MORROWBIE JUKES THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING "THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD"