On January 18, 1936, Rudyard Kipling died, shortly before World War II and the subsequent decline of the British Empire. His autobiography, Something of Myself, was published posthumously.

The World of Rudyard Kipling and The Jungle Books

1775The thirteen American colonies rebel against British rule, in a revolution that will last until 1783. Through out the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, the British Empire gains more territory, including parts of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and India.
1837- 1838Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens, is published; the title character is generally considered the first child hero in the British novel.
1857- 1858The Indian Mutiny takes place, a bid for independence from British rule. The British East India Company, in corporated in 1600 to exploit trade, has long since evolved into an agent of British imperialism. The rebel lion results in the company’s dissolution, and in 1858 the British government assumes direct rule of India, ending the Moghul Empire and beginning the British Raj. The British Empire expands to the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf in the west and to the Malay states, Hong Kong, and Shanghai in the east.
1859Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Nat ural Selection appears; the work has a profound influence on popular views of the natural world.
1865Joseph Rudyard Kipling is born on December 30 in Bombay, India, to John Lockwood Kipling, a professor of architectural sculpture at the Bombay School of Art, and Alice Macdonald Kipling, an in-law of the Pre Raphaelite painter Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Lewis Car roll publishes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
1868In March the Kipling family arrives in England, where Rudyard’s sister, Alice, is born. Shortly thereafter the Kiplings return to India. Louisa May Alcott publishes Little Women.
1869Matthew Arnold publishes his influential text Culture and Anarchy, which warns that anarchy results from wor shiping freedom as an end in itself.
1870Rudyard’s brother, John, is born but dies in infancy.
1871The family sails again for England, where Rudyard and Alice are placed in foster care with the Holloway family at a house in Southsea that Kipling later called “The House of Desolation”; their parents return to India. Rudyard’s subjection to physical and emotional abuse in the foster home leaves him scarred.
1876Mrs. Kipling returns to England and discovers the mis treatment of her children. She removes Rudyard from the Holloway home. Queen Victoria is declared em press of India.
1878Kipling enters the United Services College, a private boarding school where he develops a love of literature.
1881Kipling’s Schoolboy Lyrics is published. The Boers, white farmers of Dutch descent in South Africa, revolt against British control as the Empire continues to expand on the African continent.
1882Kipling leaves the college and returns to Lahore, India, where he takes a job as assistant editor of the Civil and Military Gazette. For the next seven years, he writes about Anglo-Indian relations and the problems arising out of British colonialism.
1884Mark Twain publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
1885Kipling becomes a Freemason, a member of a secret fra ternal order officially known as the Free and Accepted Masons.
1886He writes numerous stories for the Gazette and publishes Departmental Ditties, a collection of satirical poems about the English in India originally written for the paper.
1887He leaves the Gazette and heads for Allahabad, where he begins work as editor of a larger paper, the Pioneer, a sis ter publication of the Gazette.
1888Kipling publishes Plain Tales from the Hills, a collection of stories about colonial life in India, and his six-volume Indian Railway Library series: Soldiers Three, The Story of the Gadsbys, In Black and White, Under the Deodars, The Phantom Rickshaw, and Wee Willie Winkie.
1889He leaves India with a commission from the Pioneer to write travel articles about his journey to England via Burma, Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and America (later collected in From Sea to Sea, published in 1899). He settles in London and develops a reputation as a brilliant writer. The reissue in England of his Indian Railway Library series, originally published in India in 1888, further elevates his status as a writer.
1890In January Kipling suffers a nervous breakdown. His first novel, The Light That Failed, is published in a twelve chapter version and meets with modest success.
1891He travels to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and India (his last visit to that country). He publishes Life’s Handicap, a collection of Indian stories. The Light That Failed is published in a fourteen-chapter version.
1892Alfred, Lord Tennyson dies. Kipling marries Caroline Balestier, an American and the sister of his friend and agent Wolcott Balestier. The couple plan a trip around the world, and travel as far as Japan. Their voyage is in terrupted because the bank that holds Kipling’s savings fails and because Caroline becomes pregnant. The cou ple sets up house in Brattleboro, Vermont, the Balestiers’ hometown, where Kipling begins to compose the Jungle Book stories. Kipling publishes Barrack-Room Ballads, a book of verse celebrating army life in the British Empire (including the famous “Gunga Din,” about a Hindu water carrier for a British Indian regi ment, and “Fuzzy Wuzzy”), and a second novel, The Naulahka, written in collaboration with Wolcott Balestier. The Kiplings’ first child, Josephine, is born.
1893Many Inventions, a volume of Kipling’s short stories, is published.
1894-Two collections of animal stories for children set in
1895India, The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book, featur ing such memorable characters as Mowgli, Baloo, and Bagheera, are published.
the Gadsbys, In Black and White, Under the Deodars, The Phantom Rickshaw, and Wee Willie Winkie.
1889He leaves India with a commission from the Pioneer to write travel articles about his journey to England via Burma, Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and America (later collected in From Sea to Sea, published in 1899). He settles in London and develops a reputation as a brilliant writer. The reissue in England of his Indian Railway Library series, originally published in India in 1888, further elevates his status as a writer.
1890In January Kipling suffers a nervous breakdown. His first novel, The Light That Failed, is published in a twelve chapter version and meets with modest success.
1891He travels to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and India (his last visit to that country). He publishes Life’s Handicap, a collection of Indian stories.