PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS is the first collection of short stories by English writer, RUDYARD KIPLING, first published by Thacker, Spink & Co. of Calcutta, British India in 1888. Out of its 40 stories, twenty-eight of them were first published between November 1886 and June 1887 in the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, Punjab, British India. The remaining tales were new for this collection. Kipling had worked as a journalist for the CMG since 1882. It was his first job. The title refers, by way of a pun on "Plain" as the reverse of "Hills", to the deceptively simple narrative style; and to the fact that many of the stories are set in the Hill Station of Simla—the "summer capital of the British Raj" during the hot weather. Not all of the stories are, in fact, about life in "the Hills": Kipling gives sketches of many aspects of life in British India. The tales include the first appearances, in book form, of Mrs. Hauksbee, the policeman Strickland, and the Soldiers Three (Privates Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd).