"Pip is a poor orphan whose life is changed forever by two very different meetings--one with an escaped convict and the other with an eccentric old lady and the beautiful girl who lives with her. And who is the mysterious person who leaves him a fortune?"--Page 4 of cover
First published in 1888, Plain Tales from the Hills was Kipling's first volume of prose fiction. Most of the stories it includes had already appeared in the Civil and Military Gazette they were written before he reached the age of 22; and they show a remarkably precocious literary talent. His vignettes of life in Brittish India a hundred years ago give vivid insight into Anglo-India at work and play, into a barrack-room life, and into the character of Indians themselves.