Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was a poet, novelist, journalist, essayist, and short-story writer. Born in Bombay, India, Kipling absorbed the landscape, later saying his perception of India “‘is of daybreak, light and colour and golden and purple fruits . . .’”

Kipling’s parents sent him and his sister to England in pursuit of educations. Kipling endured hardship there; he felt abandoned by his parents and was abused by the widow he lived with.

Kipling went to the United Services College in Devon in 1878. In 1882, Kipling left school, went back to India, and became an assistant editor of the Civil and Military Gazette. Aside from his journalism career and a later stint at the Allahabad Pioneer, Kipling wrote stories, including the poetry collection Departmental Ditties, The Story of the Gadsbys, “Wee Willie Winkie” and Other Child Stories, and what would become Plain Tales from the Hills. Kipling went to England in 1889 and gained attention as a writer. Kipling married and traveled to the United States.

Kipling is known for his writings for children, including The Jungle Book, “Captains Courageous”: A Story of the Grand Banks, and Just So Stories for Little Children. Kipling also wrote the novel Kim, poems, including The Seven Seas and Cuckoo Song.

Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907.

Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2004. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group. 2004.