RUDYARD KIPLING
Rudyard Kipling was born on 30th December 1865 in Bombay, India. His father, John was an art teacher, illustrator and museum curator. His mother, was Alice MacDonald, one of four sisters. He had a younger sister named Trix.
In 1870 he was taken back to England to stay with a foster family in Southsea before going to a boarding school in Devon. In 1882 he returned to India and worked as a journalist, writing fiction and poetry in his spare time. In 1889 Kipling went to live in London.
In 1892 he married Caroline Balestier, who was the sister of an American friend and the couple moved to Vermont in the USA. The couple had two daughters there and a son who born later, in England.
By now Kipling was an extremely popular writer and poet for children and adults. The 'Just So Stories' (1902) were originally written for his daughter Josephine who died of pneumonia aged six.
In 1902, Kipling bought a 17th century house called Bateman's in East Sussex where he lived for the rest of his life.
He died on January 18th, 1936 and is buried at Westminster Abbey
Five facts about Rudyard Kipling:
1. He was named after the Rudyard Lake in Staffordshire, England.
2. Kipling turned down many many honours including a knighthood.
3. Two of his three children died at an early age.
4. He remains the youngest recipient of the Noble Prize in Literature.
5. He describes the terrible years of his childhood in his short story BaaBaa, Black Sheep.
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4 comments:
I've just bought a copy of The Just-So Stories for a young friend and have been reading through them again. Well, you don't read them, you chant them, you declaim them. They really are brilliant.
My father bought them for me when I was seven, because he'd read them as a boy and hoped I would like them too. I loved them and hope my young friend will enjoy them as much.
I loved them as a child. Must find time to read them again.
I wonder how many representatives of the so called great powers ever read The Young British Soldier. About what happens to those who invade Afghanistan.
".... When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains.... ".
Kipling also wrote this: The Dead Statesman. Seems very fresh and relevant today, even though the worst of our 'statesmen' aren't dead.
I could not dig; I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
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