In this book the author puts the case for a complete revaluation of Kipling's career, which began with irreverent sketches of Anglo-Indian society and ended with public warnings about the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany. Kipling celebrated the British Empire and created the literary image of the British Tommy; wrote virulent political satire and charming didactic poems for children. He was a romantic and a realist; a materialist who wrote about the supernatural; a populist and a highly original, complex artist. This book examines all phases of Kipling's poetic career and argues for him to be acknowledged as one of the most important English poets of the 20th century. Peter Keating also wrote The Working Classes in Victorian Fiction, Into Unknown England and The Haunted Study, for which he was awarded a Scottish Arts Council Book Award.