American Fiction: The Day’s Work, US Imperialism and the Politics of Wall Street

Abstract

Kipling emerged from ‘that furious spell of work’ on the Pioneer Weekly towards the end of 1888. Buoyed by those favourable reviews, he decided it was time to make his mark in London. Up to this point, he had published ‘one book of verse; one ditto prose; and […] a set of small paper-backed railway bookstall volumes embodying most of my tales in the Weekly’.1 Selling the copyright in the railway volumes to A.H. Wheeler & Co. (the firm controlling the Indian bookstalls) and the rights in Plain Tales from the Hills and Departmental Ditties to the Calcutta firm Thacker Spink, he raised the funds for a long journey home via the Far East and the United States accompanied by his friends, Alex and Edmonia Hill. Before leaving Allahabad he arranged to supply the Pioneer with a series of articles on his travels. These were published in the newspaper throughout 1888 and were later collected in the twovolume edition, From Sea to Sea (1899–1900).