_Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay in 1865. The grandson of
a clergyman, both on his father's and mother's side, he was educated
in England and served his apprenticeship as a writer on the
newspapers in India. No man ever tried harder to convey to his
reader the sensation and very pulse of life that he himself felt than
did Kipling in his early work, of which "The Phantom 'Rickshaw" is a
well-known example. Though he is undoubtedly one of the great
writers of short stories, we are still too near him to be able to
clearly appreciate his great talents._