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Kipling, Rudyard

Rudyard Kipling�¢??s popularity has endured several pronounced swings. As a young man he established himself as one of the most respected poets of his day, and was the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature at the age of 42 in 1907. His poems and stories remained popular for many years, but as he grew older his reputation steadily declined, largely because of his outspoken imperialism and what was perceived as cultural insensitivity and racism in his writing. However, interest in his work was eventually rekindled and in modern times he has once again secured a place in literary history, though perhaps more for his children�¢??s books for than for his poetry or short stories.
 
Born in Bombay, India in 1865, Kipling was sent to England to be educated when he was six and spent an unhappy childhood at the hands of an abusive caregiver. He was able to leave her house for boarding school when he was 12. In 1881 he returned to India, where his parents still lived, and found work as a newspaper editor and reporter. He soon enjoyed some success in selling his poetry and short stories; By the time he returned to England in 1889, he had built up a name for himself as a writer.
 
In 1892, Kipling married Caroline Balestier and the couple relocated to Brattleboro, Vermont, where Kipling�¢??s wife owned property. He published some of his best work during these years, including the poems "Gunga Din" (1892), "If" (1895) and the children�¢??s story The Jungle Book. Though initially happy in Vermont, the Kiplings returned to the Sussex area of England in 1897 following a quarrel with Caroline�¢??s brother.

Kipling continued to be very productive in the early 1900�¢??s, publishing "White Man�¢??s Burden" in 1899, Kim (1901) and, following several trips to Africa, the children�¢??s book Just So Stories (1902). However, his productivity dwindled in his later years, due in part to the death of his daughter Josephine in 1899 and his son John in the war in 1915. Public opinion also had also begun to turn against him. Despite his personal troubles, Kipling continued to travel and write from his home in Sussex until his death from a brain hemorrhage in 1936.

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Articles About Kipling, Rudyard

Naulakha, Rudyard Kipling's Priceless Jewel January 13, 2011
Vermont was the ideal sanctuary for a writer, at the turn of the previous century, to ply the solitary craft. Southern Vermont, today, as a ski resort with historic attractions, can still boast a more laid back atmosphere.
Rudyard Kipling's Waltzing Ghost: The Literary Heritage of Brown's Hotel December 1, 2007
Central London is fairly quiet when we put down at Albemarle Street. Yet an even deeper hush settles on the morning when a top-hatted doorman bustles out with an upraised umbrella and ushers us into another century. The reputation of Brown's Hotel precedes it, if the fact sheet we read back home in Chicago is any indication. "At which hotel do you stay in London?" one gentleman supposedly inquired of another. He allegedly replied: "I don't stay in a hotel, I stay at Brown's".

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