After a threat from the tiger Shere Khan, Mowgli is forced to flee the jungle, by which he embarks on a journey of self discovery with the help of the panther, Bagheera and the free-spirited bear, Baloo.
Publication date 1894 Preceded by 'In the Rukh' Followed by The Jungle Book (1894) is a collection of stories by the English author. Most of the characters are animals such as the tiger and the bear, though a principal character is the boy or 'man-cub', who is raised in the jungle by wolves. 
The stories are set in a forest in; one place mentioned repeatedly is 'Seonee' (), in the state of.
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 in the triumph of protagonists including and The White Seal over their enemies, as well as Mowgli's. Another important theme is of law and freedom; the stories are not about, still less about the struggle for survival, but about human in animal form. They teach respect for authority, obedience, and knowing one's place in society with 'the law of the jungle', but the stories also illustrate the freedom to move between different worlds, such as when Mowgli moves between the jungle and the village. Critics have also noted the essential wildness and lawless energies in the stories, reflecting the irresponsible side of human nature. The Jungle Book has remained popular, partly through.
Critics such as Swati Singh have noted that even critics wary of Kipling for his supposed have admired the power of his storytelling. The book has been influential in the, whose founder,, was a friend of Kipling's. Composed his Jungle Book Cycle around quotations from the book. Contents • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Context The stories were first published in magazines in 1893–94. The original publications contain illustrations, some by the author's father,. Rudyard 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 six-and-a-half years. These stories were written when Kipling lived in, the home he built in,, in the United States. There is evidence that Kipling wrote the collection of stories for his daughter Josephine, who died from pneumonia in 1899, aged 6; a first edition of the book with a handwritten note by the author to his young daughter was discovered at the 's in Cambridgeshire, England, in 2010. Book Description The tales in the book (as well as those in, which followed in 1895 and includes five further stories about Mowgli) are, using animals in an 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 of the politics and society of the time. Places in named by Kipling in versions of the stories In a letter written and signed by Kipling in 1895, Kipling confesses to borrowing ideas and stories in the Jungle Book: 'I am afraid that all that code in its outlines has been manufactured to meet 'the necessities of the case': though a little of it is bodily taken from (Southern) Esquimaux rules for the division of spoils,' Kipling wrote in the letter. 'In fact, it is extremely possible that I have helped myself promiscuously but at present cannot remember from whose stories I have stolen.'