Kipling's best-loved work now in a gorgeous new clothbound edition designed by the
award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. These delectable and collectable editions are bound in
high-quality tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. The story of Mowgli the
man-cub who is brought up by wolves in the jungles of Central India is one of the greatest
literary myths ever created. As he embarks on a series of thrilling escapades Mowgli
encounters such unforgettable creatures as the bear Baloo the graceful black panther Bagheera
and Shere Khan the tiger with the blazing eyes. Other animal stories in The Jungle Books range
from the dramatic battle between good and evil in 'Rikki-tikki-tavi' to the macabre comedy 'The
Undertakers'. With The Jungle Books Rudyard Kipling drew on ancient beast fables Buddhist
philosophy and memories of his Anglo-Indian childhood to create a rich symbolic portrait of
man and nature and an eternal classic of childhood. Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay in
1865. In 1882 Kipling 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 when he returned to England in 1889. His most famous works
include The Jungle Book (1894) Kim (1901) and the Just So Stories (1902). 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. Jan Montefiore has taught at the
University of Kent since 1978 where she is now Professor of 20th Century English Literature.
She is the author of Men and Women Writers of the 1930s (1996) Arguments of Heart and
Mind:Selected Essays 1977-2000 (2002) Feminism and Poetry (3rd edition 2004) and Rudyard
Kipling (2007). Kaori Nagai is a Research Associate at the University of Kent and author of
Empire of Analogies (2006). She has also introduced Kobo Abe's Face of Another and Kipling's
Plain Tales from the Hills for Penguin
