"Once upon a time, O my Best Beloved" - So begins this classic collection of gloriously fanciful tales of how things in the world came to be as they are. Here is the story of how the lazy camel found himself with a hump and how the insatiable curiosity of the elephant earned him his long trunk. Of how the whale was given a throat, and why every rhinoceros has great folds in his skin and a very bad temper. Here too, we find out about the cunning cat that walked by itself, and how clever little Taffy and her Daddy Tegumai made the first alphabet. Rudyard Kipling first entertained his own children with these delightful, warm and humorous stories, which he later wrote down for publication in 1902. Conjuring up distant lands and exotic jungles, they are bewitching for both children and adults. In this sumptuous volume, which includes the often missing thirteenth story, The Tabu Tale (which Kipling added for the American edition in 1903). Kipling's unforgettable cast of extraordinary animal characters is brought to life in stunning new illustrations by the award-winning illustrator Robert Ingpen.
Author Biography
Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay in 1865. Although educated in England, he returned to India as an adult and worked as a journalist. There, he produced stories, sketches and poems that made him a literary celebrity when he returned to England in 1889.
Robert Ingpen was born in Geelong, Australia. He began studying illustration art and book design over fifty years ago at The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and has designed, written and illustrated more than one hundred works of fiction and non-fiction. In 1986, Ingpen received the highest honour in the children's book world, the Hans Christian Andersen Medal, for his contribution to international children's literature. He has also recently been awarded an honorary doctorate from RMIT and granted Membership of the Order of Australia for services to literature. He and his wife Angela live and work in Anglesea near their home town of Geelong. In recent times, he has illustrated editions of classic works such as The Jungle Book, Treasure Island, A Christmas Carol, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Around the World in Eighty Days and the centenary editions of Peter Pan and Wendy, The Wind in the Willows and The Owl and the Pussycat and Other Nonsense Rhymes.
