title: The Jungle Book : The Classic Tale
author:  Rudyard Kipling 
description: <div><B>Joseph Rudyard Kipling</B> (December 30, 1865 - January 18, 1936) was a British author and poet, born in India. He is best known for the children's story <I>The Jungle Book</I> (1894), the Indian spy novel <I>Kim</I> (1901), the poems <I>Gunga Din</I> (1892), <I>If</I> (1895), and his many short stories.The height of his popularity was the first decade of the 20th century: in 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, still its youngest-ever recipient to date, and in 1934 he shared the Gothenburg Prize for Poetry with William Butler Yeats. In his own lifetime he was primarily considered a poet, and was even offered a knighthood and the post of British Poet Laureate- though he turned them both down.</div>
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  # ![Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling](Image00000.jpg)
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  # Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
  
  
  ## Rudyard Kipling
  
  
  # Epigraph
  
  
  At the hole where he went in  
  
  
  Red-Eye called to Wrinkle-Skin.  
  
  
  Hear what little Red-Eye saith:  
  
  
  “Nag, come up and dance with death!”
  
  
  Eye to eye and head to head,  
  
  
  (Keep the measure, Nag.)  
  
  
  This shall end when one is dead;  
  
  
  (At thy pleasure, Nag.)  
  
  
  Turn for turn and twist for twist–  
  
  
  (Run and hide thee, Nag.)  
  
  
  Hah! The hooded Death has missed!  
  
  
  (Woe betide thee, Nag!)
  
  
  #
  
  
  
  
  
  THIS IS THE STORY
  
  
  of the great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought single-handed, through the
  bathrooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee cantonment. Darzee, the Tailorbird,
  helped him, and Chuchundra, the musk-rat, who never comes out into the middle
  of the floor, but always creeps round by the wall, gave him advice, but Rikki-
  tikki did the real fighting.
  
  
  He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail,