The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, Fiction, Classics

These are the tales of Mowgli, the lost boy raised by wolves in the jungles of India, brought up on a diet of Jungle Law, loyalty, and fresh meat from the kill, and they have captivated children and adults alike for generations. There is no better place to learn the life of the wolf pack and the natural order -- the natural justice -- of life in the jungle. And who could ever forget Mowgli's enemy, Shere Khan, the bragadocious Bengal tiger? To say nothing of Rikki-tikki-tavi, the mongoose? In this first volume, we learn how Mowgli came to be raised in the jungle, and how the wolves secured his safety. . . .

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet and novelist. Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901) and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888). His poems include "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If-" (1910). He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story; his children's books are classics of children's literature and one critic described his work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift". Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry James said: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known." In 1907, at the age of 41, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize and its youngest recipient to date.