Rudyard Kipling

Born in Bombay on December 30, 1865, Rudyard Kipling was the son of an artist and teacher of architectural sculpture. His mother, Alice was one of the talented and gorgeous Macdonald sisters. His childhood was happy and full of exotic travels. However at the age of five Kipling was sent to England to stay with a family in Southsea. He hated it there and this dislike colored his later writings.

At the age of twelve Kipling attended the United Services College at Westward Ho! The headmaster began to enliven Kipling's literary ability. Stalky & Co. is a writing based on those days. When Kipling was sixteen he returned to India and worked on the Civil and Military Gazette as well as the Pioneer. In his spare time Kipling wrote poems and stories which later became the basis for his fame.

In 1889 Kipling returned to England and wrote Barrack-Room Ballads. He married Carrie Wolcott in 1982 and returned with Carrie to Brattleboro, Vermont. Here Kipling wrote Captains Courageous and the Jungle Books. Josephine and Elsie his daughters were born in the US. Kipling returned to England in 1896 but while on a trip to the US, Josephine died and Kipling was never the same happy-go-lucky author he once was.

Kipling was the People's laureate and the Poet of the Empire and he wrote Kim, Just So Stories and the poem Gunga Din after Josephine's death. Kipling begged England to be prepared for WWI, but he no took him seriously. His son John died in the Battle of Loos in 1915. Kipling wrote Debit and Credits after this tragedy and soon became involved in the Imperial War Graves Commission. Kipling's books Kim Jungle Books were used by Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts.

Kipling passed away January 18, 1936 in London. Kipling received the Nobel Prize for Literature (1907).