Rudyard Kipling's stories were first printed in magazines in 1893 and 1894; the original publications also … See more

The tales in the book (as well as those in The Second Jungle Book, which followed in 1895 and includes eight further stories, including five about Mowgli) are fables, using animals in an anthropomorphic manner to t… See more

The book is arranged with a story in each chapter. Each story is followed by a poem that serves as an epigram.
Many of the characters (marked *) are named simply after the Hindustani names of their specie… See more

Critics such as Harry Ricketts have observed that Kipling returns repeatedly to the theme of the abandoned and fostered child, recalling his own childhood feelings of abandonment. In his view, the enemy, Shere Kha… See more