Forster, E. M., A Passage to India, reprint, Harvest Books, 1965.

Originally published in 1924, this novel follows the lives of three English newcomers to India. It was written at a time when India was still under British control and explores the clash of Eastern and Western cultures there. Forster (1879—1970), like Kipling, was fascinated with India.

Gilmour, David, The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling, Farrar Straus Giroux, 2003.

Kipling's legacy has endured a long history of vilification, but this biography offers a fresh, early-twenty-first-century perspective on his life and ideologies.

Mallett, Phillip, Rudyard Kipling: A Literary Life, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Mallett concentrates on Kipling's writing life and family life.

Yeats, William Butler, The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Vol. 1, The Poems, rev. 2d ed., Scribner, 1996.

Yeats, who received the Nobel Prize in 1923, was a contemporary of Kipling, though a markedly different poet. Although Kipling...