The Jungle Book Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire, England, in 2010. The tales in the book (as well as those in "The Second Jungle Book", which followed in 1895 and includes five further stories about Mowgli) are fables, using animals in an anthropomorphic manner to teach 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. In a letter
Rudyard Kipling the house. The house still stands on Kipling Road, three miles (5 km) north of Brattleboro in Dummerston, Vermont: a big, secluded, dark-green house, with shingled roof and sides, which Kipling called his "ship", and which brought him "sunshine and a mind at ease." His seclusion in Vermont, combined with his healthy "sane clean life", made Kipling both inventive and prolific. In the short span of four years, he produced, in addition to the "Jungle Books", a collection of short stories ("The Day's Work"), a novel ("Captains Courageous"), and a profusion of poetry, including the volume "The Seven Seas". The