The Jungle Book is a collection of stories by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), an English author and poet, born in Bombay, India. He is considered a major "innovator in the art of the short story." He was a popular writer in English in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Jungle Book was first published in 1894. The tales in the book are fables, using animals to give moral lessons.