Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay in India. His father was an arts and crafts teacher and his mother was a sister-in-law of the painter Edward Burne-Jones. India was at that time still part of the British Commonwealth.

At the age of six he was taken back to England where he began his studies. In 1878 Kipling entered United Services College. It was an expensive institution that specialized in training for entry into military academies. Kipling wanted to become a soldier, but his bad eyesight halted any of his efforts.

After being unsuccessful at the entry exams, Kipling returned back to India where he worked as a journalist for the Civil and Military Gazette (1882-87) and an assistant editor and overseas correspondent in Allahabad for Pioneer (1887-89). During his stay in India he wrote short stories that were published as the The Phantom Rickshaw. But before this collection he published his debut called The Departmental Ditties (1886), but then he became known as a writer of short stories. Kipling soon became a famous and recognized author. He became the poet of the British Empire.

In 1892 Kipling returned back to London where he married Caroline Starr Balestier. They decided to move to Vermont in United States where their daughter was born. But she soon died and Kipling decided to move back to London. The death of his daughter affected him very much and he withdrew from the scene. But he proceeded his writing and wrote some of his most famous stories such as the, Many Inventions (1893), The Jungle Book (1894), The Second Jungle Book (1895), and The Seven Seas (1896).

After the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899 he traveled to South Africa where he worked with the wounded and produced a newspaper for the army.

In 1901 Kipling published the best-selling novel, Kim. At this time Kipling becomes really popular and begins receiving prizes for his work. The most important is the Nobel Prize which he obtained in 1907. Kipling was the recipient of many honorary degrees and other awards. In 1926 he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Society of Literature.

Kipling died on January 18, 1936 in London, and was buried in Poet's Corner at Westminster Abbey. Kipling's autobiography, Something of Myself, appeared posthumously in 1937.

Author: Rudyard Kipling
Translator: Ada Kuzmányová – Bruothová
Editorship: Mladé letá, Bratislava, 1965

The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book

The Jungle book and The second Jungle book contain fifteen stories. Many of them are enacted in the jungle, except the story about white seal, which found a coast, where didn´t live any people and story about Eskimo boy, who saved his settlement from hunger. The most stories are is about Mowgli – a boy who was brought up by wolfs.

In the jungle, there lived father wolf and mother wolf, who had four wolf–cubs. One day came to their cave a small child. Father wolf brought him into cave and mother wolf was very pleased. But this child wanted Sher chan, too. Sher Chan was a tiger, who dropped on a leg, therefore he hunted only cattle and also people, although the law of jungle prohibited it. Mother wolf didn´t want to give him a child, so Sher Chan went away. But Sher Chan, before that promised, that he will kill this child later.

Mother wolf named him Mowgli, what means a little frog and she took care of him like of own cubs. When wolf–cubs and Mowgli were older, parents had to go with them on gathering of wolf´s clamp, to show cubs to other wolfs. Leader of clamp was a wolf Akela. Wolfs were deciding about Mowgli´s admission into the clamp. A bear Balu, who was a teacher, put in word for Mowgli and leopard Bagira promised to give one killed bull to the wolfs. Thus Mowgli was admissed into the clamp.
Later Bagira explained Mowgli, that he can´t eat beef, because he was admissed into the clamp at the price of bull. Such was the law of jungle. When was Mowgli older, Balu began to teach him the languages and magic passwords of various nations living in jungle.

One day monkeys kidnapped Mowgli. Monkeys didn´t have any leader therefore they decided for Mowgli. Fortunately Mowgli beheld a vulture and told him in his language,to tell Bagira and Balú, where monkeys kidnapped him. Balu and Bagira saved him with help of snake Kaa.

Then came dry season. All rivers dried, only in one river was water, therefore an elephant Háthí proclaimed an armistice., because water is more important than food. Every evening the animals went to the river to drink and they also talked tales and legends. According to legend, the first tiger in jungle didn´t have any stripes. But when he killed a man, the first elephant commanded to plants to coloured him, thus he punished him.

A few months later Bagira told Mowgli the other wolfs could kill him, when Akela will die, because they know, that he is a human being. Bagira adviced him to bring a fire from settlement of people. Mowgli went to settlement and he brought a fire.The next day there was a gathering of wolf´s clamp on Advisory rock. When Mowgli came there, Akela already wasn´t the leader and Sher Chan wanted to gain Mowgli from wolfs. Mowgli used a fire for defense and then he went away from wolfs. Mowgli decided that he went to people. When he came into settlement, people surrounded him. They knew, according to scars on hands and legs, that he grew up with wolfs. The priest gave him to educate to woman named Messua. Messua took care of him and Mowgli learned human speech very soon. Mowgli became a cow-boy.