Being Kipling exposes Rudyard Kipling s identity as he himself perceived
it through the lens of a collection of works composed over a period of
years and brought together in the volume Land and Sea Tales for Scouts
and Guides. Dillingham uses this extraordinary collection, ostensibly
put together for the inspiration of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides and
frequently ignored by critics and biographers, to offer rare insight
into formative events from Kipling s youth that shaped his personality
and made him the man and writer that he became. The eight stories, eight
poems, and three essays of Land and Sea Tales for Scouts and Guides are
all examined closely both for what they reveal about Kipling s life and
worldview and for their rarely perceived, but considerable literary
merit.