Plain Tales from the Hills

Plain Tales from the Hills (published 1888) is the first collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Out of its 40 stories, "e;eight-and-twenty"e;, 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. "e;The remaining tales are, more or less, new."e; (Kipling had worked as a journalist for the CMG-his first job-since 1882, when he was not quite 17.) The title refers, by way of a pun on "e;Plain"e; as the reverse of "e;Hills"e;, to the deceptively simple narrative style; and to the fact that many of the stories are set in the Hill Station of Simla-the "e;summer capital of the British Raj"e; during the hot weather. Not all of the stories are, in fact, about life in "e;the Hills"e;: Kipling gives sketches of many aspects of life in British India.(Excerpt from Wikipedia)