 |
Rudyard Kipling |
Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay in 1865. His father, John Lockwood Kipling, was the author and illustrator of Beast and Man in India and his mother, Alice, was the sister of Lady Burne-Jones.
In 1871 Kipling was brought home from India and spent five unhappy years with a foster family in Southsea. It was during his time at the college that he began writing poetry and Schoolboy Lyrics was published privately in 1881. In the following year he started work as a journalist in India, and while there, produced a body of work, stories, sketches and poems - notably Plain Tales from the Hills (1888) - which made him an instant literary celebrity.
In 1892 he married an American, Caroline Balestier, and from 1892 to 1896 they lived in Vermont, where Kipling wrote The Jungle Book, published in 1894. In 1901 came Kim and in 1902 the Just So Stories.
From 1902 Kipling made his home in Sussex, but he continued to travel widely. The stories he subsequently wrote, A Diversity of Creatures (1917), Debits and Credits (1926) and Limits and Renewals (1932) are now thought by many to contain some of his finest writing. The death of his only son in 1915 also contributed to a new inwardness of vision.
Kipling refused to accept the role of Poet Laureate and other civil honours, but he was the first English writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize, in 1907. He died in 1936.
 |