Rudyard Kipling 
The Jungle Book 

The Jungle Book is a collection of stories by English author Rudyard Kipling. The tales in the book are fables, using animals in an anthropomorphic manner to give moral lessons. The verses of The Law of the Jungle, for example, lay down rules for the safety of individuals, families and communities. Kipling put in them nearly everything he knew or ‘heard or dreamed about the Indian jungle.’ Other readers have interpreted the work as allegories of the politics and society of the time. The best-known of them are the three stories revolving around the adventures of an abandoned ‘man cub’ Mowgli who is raised by wolves in the Indian jungle. The most famous of the other stories are probably ‘Rikki-Tikki-Tavi’, the story of a heroic mongoose, and ‘Toomai of the Elephants’, the tale of a young elephant-handler.