In 1917 Kipling joined the War Graves Commission. He published A Diversity of Creatures, a collection of stories mainly written before the outbreak of war, but including two "tales of '15", one of which ("Mary Postgate") has been seen as among the most important of his late stories. Kipling also published in newspapers a series of war articles about the Italian-Austrian front, The War in the Mountains.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was not yet 25 when he burst onto the literary scene in London, where his stories of Anglo-Indian life made him an instant celebrity. He won the Nobel Prize in 1907. Born in India in 1865 to an upper-class military family, he spent his early years in Britain and India and achieved his initial success as a reporter in India. He traveled widely and visited the U.S. a number of times, eventually building a house in Vermont. A restless wanderer, he ultimately settled in Sussex, only to have his world tumble into ruins with the death of his son in World War I.
Kipling is revered for his adult and children's stories and poems, but much of his life and writings is largely unknown in the United States. Witty, profound, wildly funny, acerbic and occasionally savage, Rudyard Kipling's writings continue to delight readers of all ages.