‘Kipling Is Not the Meekest of Men’

Abstract

‘The Idler. Edited by Jerome K. Jerome and Robert Barr.¹ An illustrated monthly magazine, price sixpence’, was Barr’s idea. But the title was mine. Barr had made the English edition of the Detroit Free Press quite a good property; and was keen to start something of his own. He wanted a popular name and, at first, was undecided between Kipling and myself. He chose me — as, speaking somewhat bitterly, he later on confessed to me — thinking I should be the easier to ‘manage’. He had not liked the look of Kipling’s jaw. Kipling had been about two years in London, and had just married his secretary, a beautiful girl with a haunting melancholy in her eyes that still lingers.

My Life and Times (New York and London: Harper, 1926) pp. 166–7, 232–3.