The Day's Work - Volume 1

Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.9

Word count: 587K words
Chapters: 59

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Day's Work - Volume 1 by Rudyard KiplingAuthor: Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Mar 1, 2001

Editor's review

The first volume of The Day's Work is a significant gathering of Kipling's short fiction, with stories largely centered on work, technology, responsibility, and the fates of characters set against an imperial backdrop. Kipling's narrative pace is brisk, his observation of machinery, seamanship, and engineering detailed, and his dialogue marked by a strong sense of profession and locality. Unlike his children's literature, this volume addresses adult readers, revealing the author's complex attitude toward modern division of labor and professional ethics. Readers may note how concrete workplace scenes carry larger issues of the age, and appreciate his control of the short-story form. As a public-domain English ebook, it serves as an entry point to Kipling's short fiction and a reference for those studying English short-story technique from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. Given the text's pronounced period character, some attitudes require historical contextualization.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy Kipling and wish to broaden their short-fiction reading
Literature students studying narrative technique in English short stories
Readers interested in late-nineteenth-century themes of profession and empire
Readers with English proficiency who prefer reading piece by piece

Not a good fit for

General readers who prefer Chinese translations and avoid English originals
Those expecting a continuous long narrative rather than stand-alone stories
Readers sensitive to works bearing the limitations of their era

Reading tips

Read each story independently, pausing briefly after each to review characters and themes.
Note professional terminology and dialogue style; mark unfamiliar expressions as you go.
Read with Kipling's historical context in mind to understand where his narrative perspective comes from.
Choose one story for close reading to appreciate the structure and rhythm of the short form.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What kinds of stories does this first volume contain?

Sources indicate this is the first volume of Kipling's short stories, largely centered on work, technology, and professional life, with settings including seafaring and engineering. For specific contents, consult the ebook's table of contents before reading to see how the pieces are distributed.

Can I read this without having read other Kipling works?

Yes. This is a collection of short stories, each relatively independent and requiring no prior reading. Kipling's writing, however, is strongly marked by period and locality, so newcomers may need an adjustment period; starting with shorter pieces in more concentrated settings is advisable.

Is the English version difficult to read?

The text is late-nineteenth- to early-twentieth-century English, with dialect and trade jargon in the dialogue; sentence structures are not daunting, but vocabulary is broad. Readers with upper-intermediate English can proceed smoothly, using annotation tools for unfamiliar professional terms.

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About the author

Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936 Author

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) was a British writer, and this library holds sixty-five of his works. Publicly available material on his life is limited, so the following introduction focuses on his writings. He is known chiefly for fiction and fairy tales, often dealing with animals, the jungle, exotic adventure and youthful growth. His language is vivid, his narrative pace brisk, and his stories combine imagination with moral meaning. The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book, set in the Indian jungle, tell of the boy Mowgli among the animals and have been widely read; Just So Stories explains in a light manner how animals came by their features; Kim portrays growth and the search for identity in an Indian setting; Puck of Pook's Hill draws on history and legend to tell of England's past; and The Man Who Would Be King displays adventure and ambition. His works are often classed as inspirational coming-of-age reading and have had a lasting influence on children's literature and English-language readers.