The best short storiesThe diverse tales selected for this volume display the astonishing virtuosity of Rudyard Kipling's early writings. A Nobel prize winner, Kipling was phenomenally productive and imaginative, displaying a literary mastery of idioms, technology and technical ternis, exotic locations, and social range. He gained immense popularity, becoming (as these stories indicate) the knowledgeable spokesman for a wide public. Later, although Kipling's right wing