Editing Rudyard Kipling (section)

===Return to London===
Kipling decided to use the money to move to London, the literary centre of the [[British Empire]]. On 9 March 1889, he left India, travelling first to San Francisco via [[Yangon|Rangoon]], Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. Kipling was favourably impressed by Japan, calling its people and ways "gracious folk and fair manners".<ref name="auto1">[[#Scott|Scott]], p. 315.</ref> The [[Nobel Prize in Literature|Nobel Prize]] committee cited Kipling's writing on the manners and customs of the Japanese when they awarded his Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907.<ref>{{Cite web|date=1 April 2021|title=The Nobel Prize committee cited Rudyard Kipling's writing on the manners and customs of the Japanese when they awarded him his Nobel prize in 1907|url=https://www.redcircleauthors.com/factbook/the-nobel-prize-committee-cited-rudyard-kiplings-writing-on-the-manners-and-customs-of-the-japanese-when-they-awarded-him-his-nobel-prize-in-1907/|access-date=15 April 2021|website=Red Circle Authors|archive-date=15 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415100408/https://www.redcircleauthors.com/factbook/the-nobel-prize-committee-cited-rudyard-kiplings-writing-on-the-manners-and-customs-of-the-japanese-when-they-awarded-him-his-nobel-prize-in-1907/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Kipling later wrote that he "had lost his heart" to a [[geisha]] whom he called O-Toyo, writing while in the United States during the same trip across the Pacific, "I had left the innocent East far behind.... Weeping softly for O-Toyo.... O-Toyo was a darling."<ref name="auto1" />  Kipling then travelled through the United States, writing articles for ''The Pioneer'' that were later published in ''[[From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel]]''.<ref name="pinney1">Pinney, Thomas (editor). ''Letters of Rudyard Kipling, volume 1''. Macmillan & Co., London and NY.</ref>

Starting his North American travels in San Francisco, Kipling went north to [[Portland, Oregon]], then [[Seattle]], Washington, up to [[Victoria, British Columbia|Victoria]] and [[Vancouver]], British Columbia, through [[Medicine Hat]], Alberta, back into the US to [[Yellowstone National Park]], down to [[Salt Lake City]], then east to [[Omaha, Nebraska]] and on to Chicago, then to [[Beaver, Pennsylvania]] on the [[Ohio River]] to visit the Hill family -- Mrs. Edmonia 'Ted' Hill, "eight years older than [him, who had] become Kipling's closest confidante, friend and sometimes collaborator" in British India, and her husband, Professor S. A. Hill, who [had] taught Physical Science at Muir College in Alhallabad.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.bcpahistory.org/beavercounty/BeaverCountyTopical/notablepeople/KiplingsBeaverConnection/KiplingsBeaverConnection.html|title=Rudyard Kipling's Beaver Connection|author-first= Roger|author-last= Applegate| journal=Milestones |volume=34 |issue=2 |access-date=6 August 2023|archive-date=6 August 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230806165630/https://www.bcpahistory.org/beavercounty/BeaverCountyTopical/notablepeople/KiplingsBeaverConnection/KiplingsBeaverConnection.html|url-status=live}}</ref> From Beaver, Kipling went to [[Chautauqua, New York|Chautauqua]] with Professor Hill, and later to [[Niagara Falls]], Toronto, Washington, D.C., New York, and Boston.<ref name="pinney1" />

In the course of this journey he met [[Mark Twain]] in [[Elmira, New York]], and was deeply impressed. Kipling arrived unannounced at Twain's home, and later wrote that as he rang the doorbell, "It occurred to me for the first time that Mark Twain might possibly have other engagements other than the entertainment of escaped lunatics from India, be they ever so full of admiration."<ref name="auto2">{{cite journal |author=Hughes, James |title=Those Who Passed Through: Unusual Visits to Unlikely Places |pages=146–151 |journal=New York History |volume=91 |issue=2 |year=2010 |jstor=23185107}}</ref>

[[File:Collier 1891 rudyard-kipling.jpg|thumb|upright|A portrait of Kipling by [[John Collier (Pre-Raphaelite painter)|John Collier]], c.&nbsp;1891]]
[[File:Rudyard Kipling three quarter length portrait (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright|Rudyard Kipling, by the [[Bourne & Shepherd]] studio, Calcutta (1892)]]

As it was, Twain gladly welcomed Kipling and had a two-hour conversation with him on trends in Anglo-American literature and about what Twain was going to write in a sequel to ''[[The Adventures of Tom Sawyer|Tom Sawyer]]'', with Twain assuring Kipling that a sequel was coming, although he had not decided upon the ending: either Sawyer would be elected to Congress or he would be hanged.<ref name="auto2" /> Twain also passed along the literary advice that an author should "get your facts first and then you can distort 'em as much as you please."<ref name="auto2" /> Twain, who rather liked Kipling, later wrote of their meeting: "Between us, we cover all knowledge; he covers all that can be known and I cover the rest."<ref name="auto2" /> Kipling then crossed the [[Atlantic]] to [[Liverpool]] in October 1889. He soon made his début in the London literary world, to great acclaim.<ref name="rutherford" />