The Jungle Books

Rudyard Kipling had never visited the jungles of Central India, yet his descriptions have a breathtaking imaginative power; and in Mowgli, the boy who grows up among wolves, he created one of the most popular and enduring of modern literary myths. Mowgli's companions and enemies include such unforgettable creatures as Shere Khan the tiger and Bagheera the black panther; from the moment "a little naked cub" wanders into the lair of Father Wolf and Mother Wolf to the moment when the "Master of the Jungle" returns to his own people, Mowgli's adventures comprise a rich and complex fable of human life. Along with these stories are other animal tales, ranging from the simple heroism of "Rikki-tikki-tavi" to the macabre comedy of "The Undertakers." Addressed equally to the imagination and understanding of children and adults, these tales are among the finest work of a master storyteller.

Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay in 1865. During his time at the United Services College, he began to write poetry, privately publishing Schoolboy Lyrics in 1881. The following year he started work as a journalist in India, and while there produced a body of work, stories, sketches, and poems ?including “Mandalay,” “Gunga Din,” and “Danny Deever”?which made him an instant literary celebrity when he returned to England in 1889. While living in Vermont with his wife, an American, Kipling wrote The Jungle Books, Just So Stories, and Kim?which became widely regarded as his greatest long work, putting him high among the chronicles of British expansion. Kipling returned to England in 1902, but he continued to travel widely and write, though he never enjoyed the literary esteem of his early years. In 1907, he became the first British writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize. He died in 1936