Nominations Kipling was nominated four times beginning in
1904. He was nominated in 1907 by
Charles Oman, professor of modern history at the
University of Oxford, which later led to him being awarded the Nobel prize. In total, the
Swedish Academy received 37 nominations for 21 writers. The highest number of nominations – five nominations – were for the Italian writer
Angelo de Gubernatis followed by American theologian
Borden Parker Bowne with four nominations. Eight of the nominees were nominated first-time such as
Holger Drachmann,
Eduardo Benot,
Andrés Manjón,
Àngel Guimerà, and
Paul Bourget.
Selma Lagerlöf is the only female nominee for that year. The American writer
Mark Twain was purportedly nominated in 1907 and 1908, but is not included in the archives. The authors
Thomas Bailey Aldrich,
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge,
Mary De Morgan, Charles Guérin,
Louise Granberg,
Benedikt Sveinbjarnarson Gröndal,
Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu,
Joris-Karl Huysmans,
Alfred Jarry,
Mkrtich Khrimian,
Hector Malot,
David Masson,
Bertram Fletcher Robinson,
André Theuriet,
Marko Vovchok,
Iosif Vulcan, and
Stanisław Wyspiański died in 1907 without having been nominated for the prize. The British minister
Ian Maclaren and Spanish academic
Eduardo Benot died months before the announcement.
Prize decision In 1907, the highly influential member of the Nobel committee
Carl David af Wirsén advocated a prize for
Algernon Charles Swinburne, but ultimately Wirsén chose to support
Rudyard Kipling's candidacy as a way of blocking another strong candidate,
Selma Lagerlöf, whose writing Wirsén disliked, from being awarded. Hence, Kipling was chosen by the Nobel Committee as the laureate. ==Reactions==