Rudyard Kipling 
Stalky & Co. (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) 

This 1899 semi-autobiographical collection of stories about boys at a British boarding school in North Devon focuses on three chums—the eponymous Stalky, Mc Turk, and Beetle—who were stand-ins for Kipling himself and his boyhood friends.  Rowdy and amusing, the stories are among Kipling’s freshest.

About the author

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), called the “prophet of British imperialism” by George Orwell, became a past master of the short story, as well as a tireless poet. The first English writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature (1907), his fiction and poetry include such works as The Jungle Book, The Light That Failed, and “Gunga Din.”