In August 1914 Kipling's son John, not yet seventeen, volunteered for a commission in the Army, but was initially refused as under age and with poor sight. Kipling pulled some strings and his son was killed at the battle of Loos a short time after. Asked to write a regimental history by the Irish Guards HQ, five years later, this masterpiece appeared. Said Kipling, 'This will be my great work... It is done with agony and bloody sweat.' This edition in two volumes is complete with the orginal maps and appendices and a foreword by George Webb, Editor of The Kipling Journal.
Rudyard Kipling was born in 1865 in Bombay. After his schooling he returned to India in 1882 where he spent seven years as a journalist and became well known for his light satirical verse. Returning to London in 1889 he soon gained an international reputation, and in 1907 won the Nobel Prize for literature. Among his most famous works are the
Just So Stories and the two
Jungle Books.