"Kipling, wrote George Orwell, is 'one of those writers one quotes unconsciously'. We think we know him - the Anglo-Indian, the brilliant spinner of tales, the spokesman for Empire. Yet do we? In this new biography - the first substantial study for many years - Harry Ricketts explores the complex relationship between his eventful personal life, his work and his fame. Through a wealth of letters, diaries - and Kipling's own poetry and fiction - we examine the myths Kipling himself created, the 'orphaned' childhood years in a Southsea boardinghouse, far from his parents in India; the power of the 'tribe' in his school at Westward Ho!, immortalised in Stalky & Co; the re-invention of India on his return as a young journalist, celebrating the romance of the common in the Barrack-Room Ballads and the lure of the strange in his stories."--Jacket.