Rudyard Kipling
(1865–1936)

Rudyard Kipling wrote short stories, novels, and poetry for both young people and adults. His writings ranged from stories about British schoolboys, to poems about life as a soldier, to tales of the Indian jungle. Kipling wrote most of his best-known pieces more than 100 years ago, and many of his works, such as the stories that make up The Jungle Books and his novels Captains Courageous and Kim, are still widely read today. One of his best-known poems, entitled "If—," ("If you can keep your head while others all about you/ Are losing theirs and blaming it on you …") continues to inspire many.

Kipling was born in Bombay, India, in 1865. At that time, India was ruled by Great Britain and many British people and their families had gone to India as government workers, military personnel, or to fill various other jobs. Kipling's father, for example, worked in an Indian museum and was also an author who wrote about India.

When young Rudyard was about six, he was sent back to England and lived for five years in a foster home. These years were not happy, nor were the following ones, during which he attended a boarding school. At school, he was lonely and bullied by other boys, but when he wrote about English boarding schools in books such as Stalky and Co., he presented life at such schools as important to the development of future citizens of the British Empire.

In 1882, Kipling returned to India, where he remained for seven years. He took a job at the British-Indian newspaper, The Civil and Military Gazette, and later wrote for a paper called The Pioneer. He also composed stories and poetry on the side. His newspaper jobs gave him opportunities to travel around the country and to observe many aspects of Indian life, including the influence the British military had on how the land was governed. During his years in England, Kipling had always remained fascinated with the land of his birth, and his writings reflected his keen observations of India. Two of the books he published during this time, a collection of poems called Departmental Ditties and a short-story collection called Plain Tales from the Hills, helped to establish his literary reputation even in England. When Kipling returned there in 1889, he found that he had become a very popular writer. His 1892 collection of poems, Barrack-Room Ballads, further strengthened his reputation. Dealing with the lives of British soldiers, these poems were written in the down-to-earth dialect that soldiers actually spoke.

Kipling moved to the United States with his American wife in 1892. The newlyweds settled in Vermont, where they remained for several years and had three children. It was during this time that Kipling wrote The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book—collections of stories about the Indian boy Mowgli and his friends in the jungle. In 1902, Kipling bought a house in Sussex, in southeast England, which would be his home for the rest of his life. Sussex also provided the background for many of the books that he wrote in his later years.

In 1907, Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, the most prestigious award a writer can win. He was the first British citizen ever to receive this prize.

When Kipling was young, Great Britain, as well as several other European countries, had colonies or possessions in various parts of the world. Britain, for example, controlled many countries in Africa and ruled Canada and Australia as well. It was said that,"The sun never sets on the British Empire," because British colonies lay in every part of the globe. This strong British influence is one reason that English is spoken in so many countries around the world.

Of the countries that made up the British Empire, India was one of the largest and most important. The British had taken almost complete control of the region by the mid-1700s, but they had begun doing business there as early as 1600, when the British East India Company was established and began trading in spices and cotton. By Kipling's time, British officials governed most areas of India, and the Indian army was a mix of British and Indian soldiers.

British families that lived in India for more than one generation, as Kipling's did, were fairly common. Individuals might travel back to Britain for short and long stays, but many felt that India was as much their home as Britain. Many British citizens lived all or most of their lives in other countries.

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