First published by Macmillan in 1894, The Jungle Book is the classic collection of animal tales that shows Rudyard Kipling's writing for children at its best. The short stories and poems include the tale of Mowgli, a boy raised by a pack of wolves in the Indian jungle. We meet the tiger Shere Khan, Bagheera, the black panther, Baloo, the 'sleepy brown bear', and the python, Kaa. Other famous stories include the tale of the fearless mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, and that of elephant-handler Toomai of the Elephants. With a beautiful foiled cover, this edition of Rudyard Kipling's much-loved classic is a book to treasure.

Author Biography

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was named after the Staffordshire reservoir near Leek beside which his parents became engaged. He was born in India and spent the first six years of his life there, acquiring Hindustani as a second language and living in a bungalow like that in The Jungle Book. He was then sent to a boarding house in England with his sister Alice, where he had a miserable time until he was sent to the United Services College at Westward Ho! in Devon, the model for Stalky & Co. He left school at sixteen to return to India and work on the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, and his familiarity with all classes of society provided him with material for Barrack-Room Ballads and Plain Tales from the Hills. In 1889 he returned to England and in 1891 published his novel The Light That Failed, and married Caroline (Carrie) Balestier the following year. They returned to her home, Brattleboro, Vermont, where Kipling wrote the two Jungle Books and Captains Courageous. In 1896 the family returned to England, where Kipling continued to write prolifically and was the first Englishman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. His later years were darkened by the death of his son, John, at the Battle of Loos in 1915.