Despite Kipling's popularity as an author and his standing as a politically controversial figure, much of his work has remained relatively unexamined due to its categorization as 'children's literature.' Sue Walsh challenges the apparently clear division between 'children's' and 'adult' literature, suggesting new directions for postcolonial and childhood studies and interrogating the way biographical criticism on children's literature in particular has tended to supersede and obstruct other kinds of readings.

Relates how the leopard got his spotted coat in order to hunt the animals in the dappled shadows of the forest.

Displaying the same verve and wit as the Just So Stories, this charming collection brings together the series of letters Rudyard Kipling wrote to his children--his "dear people" as he called them--from 1906 to 1915. The correspondence with each child is eloquently presented--for Josephine, his daughter, who died at the age of six, the grief of whose loss almost stopped him from continuing with the stories; for his son John, who would become a young officer and be lost in the trenches of World War I, his father never forgiving himself afterwards for having pushed him into the service; and for his second daughter, Elsie, who would marry but had no children of her own. The letters are peppered with many impromptu pen and ink sketches, stories, and poems, as well as brilliantly graphic descriptions of travel in Europe, Egypt, and Canada.

An overview of Kipling's work, his career and postcolonial views on his often controversial position on imperialism.

A fascinating, richly illustrated exploration of the poignant origins of Rudyard Kipling’s world-famous children’s classic From "How the Leopard Got Its Spots" to "The Elephant’s Child," Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories have delighted readers across the world for more than a century. In this original study, John Batchelor explores the artistry with which Kipling created the Just So Stories, using each tale as an entry point into the writer’s life and work—including the tragedy that shadows much of the volume, the death of his daughter Josephine. Batchelor details the playful challenges the stories made to contemporary society. In his stories Kipling played with biblical and other stories of creation and imagined fantastical tales of animals' development and man's discovery of literacy. Richly illustrated with original drawings and family photographs, this account reveals Kipling’s public and private lives—and sheds new light on a much-loved and tremendously influential classic.

Because of his "satiable curtiosity" about what the crocodile has for dinner, the elephant's child and all elephants thereafter have long trunks. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.