Rudyard Kipling, born in Bombay, India, on December 30, 1865, made a significant contribution to English Literature in various genres including poetry, short story and novel. His birth took place in an affluent family with his father holding the post of Professor of Architectural Sculpture at the Bombay School of Art and his mother coming from a family of accomplished women. He spent his early childhood in India where an “aya” took care of him and where under her influence he came in direct contact with the Indian culture and traditions.
His parents decided to send him to England for education and so at the young age of five he started living in England with Madam Rosa, the landlady of the lodge he lived in, where for the next six years he lived a life of misery due to the mistreatment – beatings and general victimization – he faced there. Due to this sudden change in environment and the evil treatment he received, he suffered from insomnia for the rest of his life. This played an important part in his literary imagination. His parents removed him from the Calvinistic foster home and placed him in a private school at the age of twelve.
The English schoolboy code of honor and duty affected his views in later life, especially when it involved loyalty to a group or a team. Returning to India in 1882 he worked as a newspaper reporter and a part-time writer and this helped him to gain a rich experience of colonial life which he later presented in his stories and poems. In 1886 he published his first volume of poetry, “Departmental Ditties” and between 1887 and 1889 he published six volumes of short stories set in and concerned with the India he had come to know and love so well.
When he returned to England he found himself already recognized and acclaimed as a brilliant writer. Over the immediately following years he published some of his best works including his most acclaimed poem “Recessional” and most famed novel “Kim”. In 1907 Kipling won the Nobel prize in literature in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterized his writings. Death of both his children, Josephine and John, deeply affected his life.
Both these incidents left a profound impression on his life, which his works published in the subsequent years after their deaths displays. Between 1919 and 1932 he traveled intermittently, and continued to publish stories, poems, sketches and historical works though his output dwindled. As he grew older his works display his preoccupation with physical and psychological strain, breakdown, and recovery. In 1936, plagued by illness, he passed away into the world beyond, leaving behind a legacy that will live for centuries to come.
