Rudyard Kipling

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The Jungle Book

Just So Stories

A timeless collection of 21 tales for all ages

BBC Classics Children’s Library

A BBC Radio full-cast reimagining of the classic story

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation

The Man Who Would Be King

V&A Collector's Edition

A Special Edition from Johanna Basford

Samuel West reads a selection of Just So Stories

The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows

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The Jungle Books

Ladybird Classics: The Jungle Book

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Stop What You’re Doing and Read…To Your Son: Just So Stories & Moonfleet

The Man Who Would Be King: Selected Stories of Rudyard Kipling

Plain Tales from the Hills

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The original stories of The Jungle Book surpass all rollicking Disneyfied expectations. On one level, the Mancub's education is pure entertainment; on another, the jungle is symbolic of Kipling's philosophy of life, a moral playground in which the young learn to swing on the vines of life

One of the greatest writers that Britain has ever produced

The incantatory text of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Books still rewards reading aloud

[Its] lasting power to enchant lies not in a contrived simplicity of language - it makes no concession to the age or verbal dexterity of the reader - but rather to its uncanny understanding of the adult within every child

'The child who has never run with Mowgli's wolf pack . . . has missed something that he will not get from any other writer

The Just So Stories and The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling have always held a fascination for me, and doubtless sparked off my love of India

Rudyard Kipling is a writer for our times, and for all time

Around a century ago, Rudyard Kipling laid the foundations of modern children's literature with works such as The Jungle Book, Just So Stories and Puck of Pook's Hill. Far from the fusty Victorian conventions of the time, they were wild, magnificent stories that felt as though they'd always existed, stories people might have told each other in the caves

The Jungle Books tell the story of the irrepressible Mowgli, who is rescued as a baby from the jaws of the evil tiger, Shere Khan. Raised by wolves and guided by Baloo the bear, Mowgli and his animal friends embark on a series of hair-raising adventures through the jungles of India.

'As a child I loved The Jungle Books... If you want to look at the India of Kipling's time, there is no writer who will give it to you better' Salman Rushdie

Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay in India on 30 December 1865. He was sent back to England when he was seven years old but returned to India in 1882 to work as the assistant editor of the Civil &amp; Military Gazette in Lahore. He published poetry and stories in newspapers but it was the publication of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888 that brought him his first major success. His most famous works are Barrack-room Ballads (1892), The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and Just So Stories (1902). The Just So Stories were written for his children and are addressed to his six-year-old daughter Josephine, his 'best beloved', who died of pneumonia in 1899. Rudyard Kipling died on 18 January 1936.

The Jungle Books

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