Rudyard Kipling is buried in 'Poets' Corner', Westminster Abbey, London,
England.
He
lies next to Charles Dickens.
Burial Stone of Rudyard Kipling
Photograph by Mike
Reed Kipling
was born in Bombay in India and enjoyed an idyllic and spoilt childhood.
However, at the age of six his parents sent him and his sister to school
in England and they lodged at a house in Southsea with a uncaring woman
who they were forced to call 'Auntie Rosa'. One of Auntie Rosa's many
punishments was to stop Kipling reading (his first love) and as a result
he took to reading in bad light which seriously exacerbated his short
sightedness. After attending the United Services College, Westward Ho!
he returned to India (Lahore) where he worked as a journalist. He soon
began to get poems and stories published in the newspaper and these were
later collected in the form of Departmental Ditties (1886) and
Plain Tales from the Hills (1888). Kipling was a considerable
poet who had a good ear for colloquial speech - as evidenced in poems such as
Tommy
and Danny Deever. His poetry was very popular with the general reading
public and he was seen by many as the unofficial poet laureate. His perceived
association with British imperialism has, recently, led to a decline in his
reputation. However, his poems
If and
The Way Through the Woods are
regularly voted among the nation's favourite verse.
Kipling's son John was killed at the Battle of Loos in the First
World War, but his body and grave were never clearly identified - which
left Kipling with a terrible sense of uncertainty. Kipling was also a
very talented children's author and he is remembered for works such as:
The Jungle Book (1894), Just So Stories (1902), Puck of
Pook's Hill (1906) and Kim (1937).
|
