But it is not difficult to see how it has come about. Kipling’s fate, to be remembered as the laureate of empire but without a secure place in the literary canon, is undeserved. The toxicity of his reputation remains strong – so much so that in 2017 a sotto voce recital of one of his most famous poems, “Mandalay” (1890), by the then foreign secretary Boris Johnson was enough to cause a minor political scandal. Notwithstanding the continued appeal in Hollywood of The Jungle Books (1894-95), Kipling’s talent is rarely acknowledged without a simultaneous apology for his politics. Said may have helped put Kipling back on to academic syllabuses, but today if he is considered at all it is from a post-colonialist perspective: Kipling is rarely more than a case study in the culture of imperialism. Edward Said described Kim (1901) as “a master work of imperialism… a rich and absolutely fascinating, but nevertheless profoundly embarrassing novel”. Orwell noted that “during five literary generations every enlightened person has despised him”, adding that “nothing could exceed the contempt of the New Statesman” for Kipling’s writing and politics. Kipling’s reputation went up like a rocket but came down like a stick. He accepted the prize in 1907 at the grand old age of 42. He was the first Briton to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, “in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration that characterise the creations of this world-famous author”. Orwell remarked that Kipling was “the only English writer of our time who has added phrases to the language”, such as “East is East”, “The White Man’s Burden” and “The female of the species is more deadly than the male”. After his death, TS Eliot described him as one of the “great verse writers”, while Somerset Maugham considered him the only British short-story writer worthy of comparison with Maupassant and Chekhov.

Henry James called him “the most complete man of genius… that I have ever known”.

Writing brought him fame when he was still in his early twenties: not since Dickens had a British writer achieved so much renown so rapidly. Rudyard Kipling was one of the most remarkable writers of his, or any, generation.

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