Just So Stories

The Camel gets his Hump, the Whale his Throat and the Leopard his Spots in these bewitching stories which conjure up distant lands, the beautiful gardens of splendid palaces, the sea, the deserts, the jungle and its creatures. Inspired by Kipling#x19;s delight in human eccentricities and the animal world, and based on bedtime stories he told to his daughter, these strikingly imaginative fables explore the myths of creation, the nature of beasts and the origins of language and writing. They are linked by poems and scattered with Kipling#x19;s illustrations, which contain hidden jokes, symbols and puzzles.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was the author of such classics as The Jungle Book and The Man Who Would Be King. He was the first English writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize.
Jan Montefiore is a professor of twentieth-century English literature at the University of Kent.
Judith Plotz teaches at George Washington University