BIOGRAPHY
Rudyard Kipling, the most vigorous, versatile, and highly endowed of the present-day writers of fiction, was born in Bombay, India, December 30, 1865. His place of birth and extensive travelling make him more Anglo-Saxon than British. His father was for many years connected with the schools of art at Bombay and Lahore in India. His mother, Alice MacDonald, was the daughter of a Methodist clergyman.
Kipling was brought to England when he was five years old to be educated. While in college at Westward Ho he edited the College Chronicle. For this paper he contributed regularly, poetry and stories. After his school days and on his return to India, he served on the editorial staff of the Lahore Civil and Military Gazette from 1882 to 1887, and was assistant editor of the Pioneer at Allahabad from 1887 to 1889.
Kipling has travelled extensively. He is at home in India, China, Japan, Africa, Australia, England, and America. The odd part about his realistic observations, however, is that his notes, whether written about California or India, are often repudiated by the people whom he has visited. After visiting England and the United States in a vain effort to find a publisher for his writings, he returned to India and published in the Pioneer his American Notes, which were immediately reproduced in book form in New York in 1891.
He married Miss Balestier of New York in 1892. They settled at Brattleboro, Vermont, immediately after their marriage and lived there until 1896. Kipling revisited the United States in 1899. While on this trip he suffered a severe attack of pneumonia which brought out a demonstration of interest from the American people that clearly showed their appreciation of him as a man and a writer.