Biography of Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling was born on December 30, 1865 in Bombay, India. Kipling's father was John Lockwood Kipling, who was a teacher at the local Jeejeebhoy School of Art, and his mother was Alice Macdonald. Rudyard is said to be named after Rudyard Lake in Staffordshire, England, which gave him his name.
As an infant, Kipling was sent to England to be cared for by Mrs. Holloway. Holloway's treatment of young Kipling was the influence of much of his writings later in life, particularly his sympathy shown for children.
Between the ages of six and twelve Kipling spent much of his time with his sister at their maternal aunt's, who was married to the artist Edward Burne-Jones, home while their parents stayed in India.
After spending time at a boarding school, Kipling went back to India in 1881. There, he began working as a newspaper editor and started his professional literature career with his first publication of poetry in 1883.
In the mid-1880s, Kipling began traveling extensively as a correspondent to Allahabad Pioneer. His fiction sales began to climb as he published six short books of short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King, in 1888.
The following year Kipling began his journey back to London. On his way, he passed Burma, China, Japan, United States and the Atlantic Ocean. During this time his literary fame grew and became associated with the voice of the modern world. In 1990 he published his first novel, The Light that Failed. His most famous work of this period was The Ballad of East and West.
In 1892, Kipling married Caroline Balestier, who was the sister of an American writer who had been friend's with Kipling, but died of typhoid fever the previous years. As the couple were on their honeymoon, Kipling's bank failed. The two were forced to sell their tickets and return to Vermont where Kipling's in-laws lived. The couple lived in the United States for the following four years, until a quarrel with the Balestier in-laws. They then returned to England in 1897.
In the meantime, Kipling turned to children's writing, publishing his most memorable works The Jungle Book (1894) and The Second Jungle Book (1895). And after his return to England, he published Captains Courageous (1897).
Kipling began traveling to southern Africa for winter vacations almost annually. While in Africa, he befriended Cecil Rhodes and collected much of his material for his children's classics Just So Stories for Little Children. The work was published in 1902 and the following year his Kim was published.
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