Stalky and Co. (original 1899; edition 2001)

by Rudyard Kipling

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Conversations / Mentions
870	14	24,738	(3.94)	1 / 38
Based on Kipling's own adolescent experiences, Stalky & Co. is a cunning story of mischievous 19th century British schoolboys attempting scholastic mutiny. The faculty and headmaster of a boys' private school repeatedly pursue a trio of poetic pranksters, "Stalky," "Beetle" and "Turkey" as they wage war on fellow students and the "establishment" with unwavering energy and creativity. Stalky & Co. is at times poignant in it's realistic portrayal of boys negotiating manhood and hilarious in it's illustration of their relentless attempts to beat the system, even in the face of creative punishment and a savvy housemaster. Listeners of all ages will delight in this tale of ingenious schemes and rebellious antics.… (more)

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Member:	ocianain
Title:	Stalky and Co.
Authors:	Rudyard Kipling
Info:	House of Stratus
Collections:	Your library
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Tags:	From a Gentlemans Shelf

Work Information

Stalky & Co. by Rudyard Kipling (1899)

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The Fourth of June by David Benedictus (devenish)
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Maurice: A Novel by E. M. Forster (aulsmith)
aulsmith: Maurice is kind of a Stalky grown-up to be gay.
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Stalky's Reminiscences by L. C. Dunsterville (PitcherBooks)
PitcherBooks: Kipling's STALKY & CO. is about three British school boys: Stalky, M'Turk and Beetle. The originals were, respectively, Lionel C. Dunsterville, George Beresford and Joseph Rudyard Kipling... [Dunsterville's memoir] is low-key, humorous, tongue-in-cheek, skipping through the author's life ... with an eye often on the comical and ordinary - T. Patrick Killough, Amzn Reviewer. Stalky's Reminiscences (aka Stalky's Adventures) is by the real Stalky and includes his recollections of Kipling. 'The real Stalky, General Dunsterville, who is so delightful a character that the fictitious Stalky must at times feel jealous of him as a rival..In the war he proved his genius in the Dunster Force adventure and in this book he shows that he possesses another kind of genius - the genius of comic self-revelation and burbling anecdote. And the whole story is told in a vain of comedy that would have done credit to Charles Lever' - The Observer… (more)

▾Lists

Best Books Set in Boarding Schools (22)

Best of British Literature (172)

Best School Stories (66)

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all aboard for malory towers (grownups) (11)

Read the book and saw the movie (882)

Books Mentioned In The Chalet School Series (7)

Literature of Honor for Boys (88)

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	Kipling wasn't (just!) an imperialist: Kipling's imperialism?	38 unread / 38	alaudacorax, August 2011

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▾Member reviews

English (11) Danish (2) French (1) All languages (14)

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Showing 1-5 of 11 (next | show all)

One of my favorite re-reads, despite being just... amazingly problematic on so very many levels. (

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wetdryvac | Mar 2, 2021 |

Despite the fairly obvious empire and race problems of Kipling, I absolutely adore this book, and pick it up pretty regularly. More than any book I know, the flow of the words and the painful humor are well executed. (

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wetdryvac | Mar 2, 2021 |

One of my absolute favorite books when I was a child, though I understood perhaps a half of the language and little of the context. Stalky, McTurk, and Beetle conspire against their masters, cheat, bully their superiors, and exact revenge against the sanctimonious with a ferocious joy that makes them eternally appealing. Never mind that Kipling's worldview is irredeemably skewed. As I was rereading it now, decades later, I understand better how my own naive perceptions of the world were formed, It is the quintessential English public-school novel. And yet I still enjoy the book. "The bleatin' of the kid excites the tiger." (

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dmturner | Jun 29, 2020 |

school boys adventures against authority

ritaer | Jun 2, 2020 |

Fairly funny, even though it gives the impression that in Kipling's days private schools were preparing boys for life by making them try and have fun with their coevals in defiance of just about everybody older than them doing their best to make life unpleasant for them. The gutenberg.com edition I read had unfortunately not only been translated into Americanese, but even renamed M'Turk to McTurk, but that's not Kipling's fault. (

)

Stravaiger64 | Oct 9, 2019 |

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Belongs to Publisher Series

The Writings in Prose and Verse of Rudyard Kipling (18)

Is contained in

Jungle Book / 2nd Jungle Book / Just So Stories / Puck of Pook's Hill / Stalky and Co. / Kim by Rudyard Kipling

The Works of Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling

Stalky & Co.; Land and Sea Tales by Rudyard Kipling

The Norton Anthology of Children's Literature by Jack Zipes

Rudyard Kipling Illustrated by Rudyard Kipling

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Canonical title

Original title

Stalky and Co.

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The complete Stalky & Company

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Stalky and Co. (1982 | IMDb)

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To the memory of Cormell Price

First words

In summer all right-minded boys built huts in the furze-hill behind the college - little lairs whittled out of the heart of the prickly bushes, full of stumps, odd root-ends, and spikes, but, since they were strictly forbidden, palaces of delight.

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▾Book descriptions

Based on Kipling's own adolescent experiences, Stalky & Co. is a cunning story of mischievous 19th century British schoolboys attempting scholastic mutiny. The faculty and headmaster of a boys' private school repeatedly pursue a trio of poetic pranksters, "Stalky," "Beetle" and "Turkey" as they wage war on fellow students and the "establishment" with unwavering energy and creativity. Stalky & Co. is at times poignant in it's realistic portrayal of boys negotiating manhood and hilarious in it's illustration of their relentless attempts to beat the system, even in the face of creative punishment and a savvy housemaster. Listeners of all ages will delight in this tale of ingenious schemes and rebellious antics.

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Legacy Library: Rudyard Kipling

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