The Jungle Book The Jungle Book The Jungle Book (1894) is a collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, who is raised in the jungle by wolves. The stories are set in a forest in India; one place mentioned repeatedly is "Seonee" (Seoni), in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. A major theme in the book is abandonment followed by fostering, as in the life of Mowgli, echoing Kipling's own childhood. The theme is echoed
Rudyard Kipling in Burwash briefly in the 1960s) as part of a BBC television series on writers and their houses. In 2003, actor Ralph Fiennes read excerpts from Kipling's works from the study in Bateman's, including, "The Jungle Book", "Something of Myself", "Kim", and "The Just So Stories", and poems, including "If... " and "My Boy Jack", for a CD published by the National Trust. In modern-day India, whence he drew much of his material, Kipling's reputation remains controversial, especially amongst modern nationalists and some post-colonial critics. Rudyard Kipling was a prominent supporter of Colonel Reginald Dyer, who was responsible for the