The Jungle Book
or other
The Jungle Book
Author
Rudyard Kipling
Illustrator
John Lockwood Kipling(Rudyard's father)
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
Series
The Jungle Books
Genre
Children's book
Publisher
Macmillan Publishers
Publication date
1894
Followed by
The Second Jungle Book
The Jungle Book (1894) is a collection of stories by English author Rudyard Kipling. The stories were
first published in magazines in 1893–94. The original publications contain illustrations, some by
Rudyard's father, John Lockwood Kipling. Kipling was born in India and spent the first six years of his
childhood there. After about ten years in England, he went back to India and worked there for about sixand-a-half years. These stories were written when Kipling lived inVermont. There is evidence that it was
written for his daughter Josephine, who died in 1899 aged six.
The tales in the book (and also those in The Second Jungle Book which followed in 1895, and which
includes five further stories about Mowgli) are fables, using animals in an anthropomorphic manner to
give moral lessons.
Other readers have interpreted the work as allegories of the politics and society of the time. The bestknown of them are the three stories revolving around the adventures of Mowgli, an abandoned "man
cub" who is raised by wolves in the Indian jungle. As with much of Kipling's work, each of the stories is
followed by a piece of verse.
The Jungle Book, because of its moral tone, came to be used as a motivational book by the Cub
Scouts, a junior element of the Scouting movement. This use of the book's universe was approved by
Kipling after a direct petition of Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scouting movement, who had
originally asked for the author's permission for the use of the Memory Game from Kim in his scheme to
develop the morale and fitness of working-class youths in cities. Akela, the head wolf in The Jungle
Book, has become a senior figure in the movement, the name being traditionally adopted by
the leader of each Cub Scout pack.
Chapters
1. "Mowgli's Brothers": A boy is raised by wolves in the Indian jungle with the help of Baloo the
bear and Bagheera the black panther, and then has to fight the tiger Shere Khan..
2. "Hunting-Song of the Seeonee Pack".
3. "Kaa's Hunting": This story takes place before Mowgli fights Shere Khan. When Mowgli is
abducted by monkeys, Baloo and Bagheera set out to rescue him with the aid of Chil the kite
and Kaa the python. Maxims of Baloo.
4. "Road Song of the Bandar-Log".
5. "Tiger! Tiger!": Mowgli returns to the human village and is adopted by Messua and
her husband who believe him to be their long-lost son Nathoo. But he has trouble adjusting to
human life, and Shere Khan still wants to kill him. The story's title is taken from the poem "The
Tyger" by William Blake.
6. "Mowgli's Song".
7. "The White Seal": Kotick, a rare white-furred northern fur seal, searches for a new home for his
people, where they will not be hunted by humans. The "animal language" words and names in
this story are a phonetic spelling of Russian spoken with an Aleut accent.
8. "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi": Rikki-Tikki the mongoose defends a human family living in India against a pair
of cobras.
9. "Darzee's Chaunt".
10. "Toomai of the Elephants": Toomai, a ten-year-old boy who helps to tend working elephants, is
told that he will never be a full-fledged elephant-handler until he has seen the elephants dance.
11. "Shiv and the Grasshopper".
12. "Her Majesty's Servants" .On the night before a military parade a British soldier eavesdrops on
a conversation between the camp animals.
13. "Parade-Song of the Camp Animals" parodies several well-known songs and poems,
including Bonnie Dundee.