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Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)

1907 Literature

In consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author.

Kipling was born in Bombay, India, into a family of artists and literary figures. His father was a conservationist at the Lahore Museum, his mother came from a family of good social standing — two of her sisters were the wives of the painters Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Sir Edward Poynter, and a third sister was mother to Stanley Baldwin, who would later become prime minister of Great Britain.

Despite the family’s good standing, Kipling, at just six years old, was sent to England, where he was to stay with relatives in Southsea for five years. This somewhat traumatic experience served as inspiration for the story “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,” published in 1888. He next attended the United Services College, a boarding school he regarded with some disdain.

Returning to India in 1882, he was a professional journalist for six years and started to publish his prose and verse in the newspapers he worked for. Many of these writings were influenced by his observations of the Anglo-Indian high society of which his parents were a part. Between 1886 and 1889, Kipling published various collections of stories, including Departmental Ditties and Other Verses, Plain Tales from the Hills, Soldiers Three, The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Tales and Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories. During his time as a journalist, Kipling also had the opportunity to travel extensively throughout India; these journeys helped him develop an accurate insight into Hindu customs, beliefs and sentiments, which he went on to present in his writing. It was later said that these reflections on Indian life helped to bring the country nearer to his readers in England than did the Suez Canal.

The Light That Failed, a novel, was published in 1890, and after publishing Barrack Room Ballads and Other Verses in 1892, Kipling saw his reputation established almost immediately. Back in England in 1892, Kipling married Caroline Balestier, the sister of an American writer and publisher. The couple moved to the United States and stayed there for several years, during which time Captains Courageous (1897), The Jungle Book (1894) and The Second Jungle Book (1895) and Kim (1901) were published. During these busy years in America, Kipling’s international popularity was widely confirmed. When he took seriously ill in 1899, the American newspapers immediately began to print daily updates of his condition, and the German Emperor sent a telegram to Kipling’s wife expressing his deepest sympathy.

His Jungle Books, particularly, have retained their popularity with children of all ages around the world. Mowgli, the young jungle boy, Bagheera, the black panther, Baloo, the bear, and Kaa, the rock python have been lovingly portrayed in print and film for more than a century. Kim, about a curious Buddhist priest on a pilgrimage, shows Kipling’s deep interest in the Indian culture.

The poet of the British Empire was declared by the Nobel Committee in 1907 to be “the greatest genius in the realm of narrative that that country has produced in our times.”