He was born in British India , which inspired much of his work. He is seen as an innovator in the art of the short story. Kipling in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was among the United Kingdom's most popular writers. Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed with the political and social climate of the age. But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognised as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced.
That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with. They married and moved to India in after John Lockwood had accepted the position as Professor at the School of Art.
A third sister, Louisa, was the mother of Kipling's most prominent relative, his first cousin Stanley Baldwin , who was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom three times in the s and s. Kipling's birth home on the campus of the J. School of Art in Bombay was for many years used as the dean's residence. Kipling seems to have said as much to the dean when visiting J.
School in the s. Mother of Cities to me, For I was born in her gate, Between the palms and the sea, Where the world-end steamers wait. According to Bernice M. Murphy, "Kipling's parents considered themselves ' Anglo-Indians ' [a term used in the 19th century for people of British origin living in India] and so too would their son, though he spent the bulk of his life elsewhere. Complex issues of identity and national allegiance would become prominent in his fiction.
Kipling referred to such conflicts. For example: "In the afternoon heats before we took our sleep, she the Portuguese ayah , or nanny or Meeta the Hindu bearer , or male attendant would tell us stories and Indian nursery songs all unforgotten, and we were sent into the dining-room after we had been dressed, with the caution 'Speak English now to Papa and Mamma.
