Letters of Marque by Rudyard Kipling

For a month Kipling, referring to himself as “The Englishman,” journeys unfettered through Rajputana, India, chronicling his adventures as a wayfarer through a world where British imperialism and Indian culture come together, sometimes mingling, sometimes not. The Anglo-Indian’s love for and understanding of the strange country of India makes each chapter, each letter, a gem of knowledge. Not only is Kipling’s India worth reading about, his passages are easily understood and he is careful only to skim the surface of this deep and strange country lest he lose his readers, making Letters of Marque an excellent work with which to study British India at a glance.