Posts about Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle are very popular, so I am always looking for inspiration for more articles.
After writing about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and the colour green, I decided to investigate occurrences of this colour in the life and works of Rudyard Kipling.
I didn't find anything amazing, but some connections are worth mentioning. The people and places that Kipling has in common with Conan Doyle are particularly interesting.
Writer Roger Lancelyn Green (1918 – 1987) was the father of Richard Lancelyn Green, the previously mentioned authority on Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. He was editor of the Kipling Journal and wrote and edited books about Kipling:
When Rudyard Kipling was staying in the House of Desolation in Southsea, he attended what he called 'a terrible little day-school'.
Roger Lancelyn Green identified the school as Hope House in Green Road, the same road that Conan Doyle's house stood opposite. Conan Doyle's younger brother Innes later came to live at this house and became a pupil at Hope House school.
Conan Doyle lived in Bush Villas, Elm Grove, Southsea; Rudyard Kipling stayed with his family at The Elms, The Green, Rottingdean near Brighton for a few years. The large garden and grounds of this house have been preserved, and as Kipling Gardens are now open to the public:
Rudyard Kipling's short story On Greenhow Hill was first published in Harper’s Magazine in 1890. It also appeared in Life's Handicap, a collection of Kipling's stories.
What makes the story of additional interest is that Conan Doyle's editor at the Strand Magazine was Herbert Greenhough Smith; by coincidence the name Greenhough is derived from Greenhow Hill.
