The Second Jungle Book

The tales in "The Jungle Book" (1894) -- as well as those in "The Second Jungle Book" (1895) -- are fables, using animals in an anthropomorphic manner to give moral lessons. The verses of "The Law of the Jungle," for example, lay down rules for the safety of individuals, families, and communities. Kipling put in them nearly everything he knew or "heard or dreamed about the Indian jungle." Other readers have interpreted the work as allegories of the politics and society of the time. The best-known of them are the three stories revolving around the adventures of Mowgli, an abandoned "man cub" who is raised by wolves in the Indian jungle. As with much of Kipling's work, each of the stories is followed by a piece of verse.

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born on December 30, 1865 in Bombay, India. He was one of the most famous writers in Great Britain, and was known for his great intelligence, being the first English-language writer and youngest recipient ever to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907. He and his younger sister, Alice were sent to live in a boarding house with a family named Holloway from 1871 to 1877, and experienced cruelty and neglect. In 1878, Kipling was sent to United Services College to prepare him for the British Army. That didn’t work out however, and his father got him a job in Pakistan at a local newspaper, taking nearly a month by ship. Working at the newspaper awakened his writing talents and he began to publish at an amazing pace. In 1889, he was dismissed from the paper and traveled the United States for seven months, ending up in London, where he published his first novel. In 1891, he left to travel the world. Just before returning, he proposed to Caroline Starr Balestier by telegram and they were married on January 18, 1892, in London. They settled in Vermont, where he wrote the two Jungle Books. He became friends with Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle and many others, but still managed to live a fairly private life. In 1896, his wife’s brother became violent toward him, and the case drew unwanted publicity, causing the Kiplings to return to England. He encouraged his son to enlist in the British Army during World War I, but he was killed by an exploding shell upon his arrival in France. After that incident, he kept writing, but at a much slower pace, dying of a perforated ulcer on January 18, 1936, in London, at the age of 70.