RUDYARD KIPLING

RUDYARD KIPLING

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an

English author and poet. Born in Mumbai (then Bombay, British India), he is best known for his works The Jungle Book (1894) and Just So Stories (1902), his novel, Kim (1901); his poems, including Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), If— (1910); and his many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King (1888). He is regarded as a major "innovator in the art of the short story"; his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature; and his best works speak to a versatile and luminous narrative gift.

PREFACE

From The Jungle Book, first published 1894

The demands made by a work of this nature upon the generosity of specialists are very numerous, and the Editor would be wanting in all title to the generous treatment he has received were he not willing to make the fullest possible acknowledgment of his indebtedness.

His thanks are due in the first place to the scholarly and accomplished Bahadur Shah, baggage elephant 174 on the Indian Register, who, with his amiable sister Pudmini, most courteously supplied the history of Toomai of the Elephants and much of the information contained in Her Majesty’s Servants. The adventures of Mowgli were collected at various times and in various places from a multitude of informants, most of whom desire to preserve the strictest anonymity. Yet, at this distance, the Editor feels at liberty to thank a Hindu gentleman of the old rock, an esteemed resident of the upper slopes of Jakko, for his convincing if somewhat caustic estimate of the national characteristics of his caste--the Presbytes. Sahi, a savant of infinite research and industry, a member of the recently disbanded Seeonee Pack, and an artist well known at most of the local fairs of Southern India, where his muzzled dance with his master attracts the youth, beauty, and culture of many villages, have contributed most valuable data on people, manners, and customs. These have been freely drawn upon, in the stories of “Tiger! Tiger!”, Kaa’s Hunting, and Mowgli’s Brothers. For the outlines of Rikki-tikki-tavi the Editor stands indebted to one of the leading herpetologists of Upper India, a fearless and independent investigator who, resolving “not to live but know”, lately sacrificed his life through over-application to the study of our Eastern Thanatophidia. A happy accident of travel enabled the Editor, when a passenger on the Empress of India, to be of some slight assistance to a fellow-passenger. How richly his poor services were repaid, readers of The White Seal may judge for themselves.

Chapters in The Jungle Book

The complete book, having passed into the public domain, is on-line at Project Gutenberg's official website and elsewhere.

1. Mowgli's Brothers: A boy is raised by wolves in the Indian Jungle with the help of Baloo the bear and Bagheera the panther, and then has to fight the tiger Shere Khan. This story has also been published as a short book in its own right. Night-Song in the Jungle

2. Hunting-Song of the Seeonee Pack

3. Kaa's Hunting: This story takes place before Mowgli fights Shere Khan. When Mowgli is abducted by monkeys, Baloo and Bagheera set out to rescue him with the aid of Chil the Kite and Kaa the python. Maxims of Baloo.

4. Road Song of the Bandar-Log

5. Tiger! Tiger!: Mowgli returns to the human village and is adopted by Messua and her husband who believe him to be their long-lost son Nathoo. But he has trouble adjusting to human life, and Shere Khan still wants to kill him. The story's title is taken from the poem "The Tyger" by William Blake.

6. Mowgli's Song

7. The White Seal: Kotick, a rare white-furred seal, searches for a new home for his people, where they will not be hunted by humans.

8. Lukannon

9. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi: Rikki-Tikki the mongoose defends a human family living in India against a pair of cobras. This story has also been published as a short book.

10. Darzee's Chant

11. Toomai of the Elephants: Toomai, a ten-year old boy who helps to tend working elephants, is told that he will never be a full-fledged elephant-handler until he has seen the elephants dance. This story has also been published as a short book.

12. Shiv and the Grasshopper

13. Her Majesty's Servants (originally titled "Servants of the Queen"): On the night before a military parade a British soldier eavesdrops on a conversation between the camp animals.

14. Parade-Song of the Camp Animals parodies several well-known songs and poems, including Bonnie Dundee

Characters

Main article: The Jungle Book characters

Mowgli - Main character, the young jungle boy.

Father Wolf - The Father Wolf who raised Mowgli as his own cub

Raksha - The Mother wolf who raised Mowgli as her own cub

Grey brother - One of Mother and Father Wolf's cubs

Hathi - An Indian Elephant

Bagheera - A Black Panther

Baloo- A Sloth Bear

Kaa - Indian Python

Shere Khan - A Bengal Tiger

Akela - An Indian Wolf

Tabaqui - A Golden Jackal

Chil - A kite

Mao - An Indian Peafowl

Mang - A Bat

Ikki - An Asiatic brush-tailed porcupine (mentioned only)

The Bandar log - A tribe of monkeys

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi - An Indian Mongoose

Darzee - A tailorbird

Chuchundra - A Muskrat

Nag - A male King cobra

Nagaina - A female King cobra. Nag's mate

Kotik - The White Seal

Sea catch - A Fur seal and Kotik's father

Sea vitch - A Walrus

The Jungle Book (1894) is a collection of stories written by Rudyard Kipling. He had accrued much knowledge about the jungles in India through research and listening to others. He was also born in India. All of the stories were published in magazines in 1893-4. The original publications contained illustrations, some by Rudyard's father, John Lockwood Kipling. These books were written when Kipling lived in Vermont.[1] The tales in the book (and also those in The Second Jungle Book which followed in 1895, and which includes five further stories about Mowgli) 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." [2] Other readers have interpreted the work as allegories of the politics and society of the time.[3] The best-known of them are the three stories revolving around the adventures of an abandoned 'man cub' Mowgli who is raised by wolves in the Indian jungle. The most famous of the other stories are probably "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", the story of a heroic mongoose, and "Toomai of the Elephants", the tale of a young elephant-handler. Kotick, The White Seal seeking for his people a haven where they would be safe from hunters, has been considered a methaphor for Zionism, then in its beginning.

As with much of Kipling's work, each of the stories is preceded by a piece of verse, and succeeded by another. The title of each is given in italics in the list of stories below. The Jungle Book, because of its moral tone, came to be used as a motivational book by the Cub Scouts, a junior element of the Scouting movement. This use of the book's universe was approved by Kipling after a direct petition of Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scouting movement, who had originally asked for the author's permission for the use of the Memory Game from Kim in his scheme to develop the morale and fitness of working-class youths in cities. Akela, the head wolf in The Jungle Book, has become a senior figure in the movement, the name being traditionally adopted by the leader of each Cub Scout pack