The Indian Railway Library was an enterprise conducted in Allahabad from 1888. It was a publishing venture of A.H. Wheeler & Co, who "had the monopoly on bookstall sales on Indian railway stations" It was a series of pamphlets intended to catch the interest of railway passengers, and offer cheap 'throwaway' reading material. The series began as a result of an initiative by Rudyard Kipling as he sought to assemble funds to return to England from India in 1888: he approached the senior partner of A.H. Wheeler & Co, Emile Moreau, with the proposal to publish his stories in cheap booklet form. The booklets were to have grey-green cards covers, with illustrations by Rudyard's father John Lockwood Kipling. Six booklets were eventually produced, which sold at the price of one rupee. They were all by Rudyard Kipling, and consisted mainly of reprints of stories that had already appeared in various of the periodicals for which he was already writing in India. They were all published in 1888.
- No. 1: Soldiers Three: a collection of stories setting forth certain passages in the lives and adventures of Privates Terence Mulvaney, Stanley Ortheris and John Learoyd done into type and edited by Rudyard Kipling., 97 pp: "Reprinted in chief from the Week’s news"
- No. 2: The Story of the Gadsbys, 100 pp: "Reprinted in chief from the Week’s news"
- No. 3: In Black and White, 108 pp.: "Reprinted in chief from the Week’s news"
- No. 4: Under the Deodars, 106 pp.: "Reprinted in chief from the Week’s news"
- No. 5: The Phantom 'Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales, 114 pp
- No. 6: Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories, 104 pp.: "Reprinted in chief from the Week’s news"
Famous quotes containing the words indian, railway and/or library:
“A red-headed woodpecker flew across the river, and the Indian remarked that it was good to eat.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“The fear of failure is so great, it is no wonder that the desire to do right by one’s children has led to a whole library of books offering advice on how to raise them.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)