Rudyard Kipling was born in India in 1865. After intermittently moving between India and England during his early life, he settled in the latter in 1889, published his novel The Light That Failed in 1891 and married Caroline (Carrie) Balestier the following year. They returned to her home in Brattleboro, Vermont, where Kipling wrote both The Jungle Book and its sequel, as well as Captains Courageous.
He continued to write prolifically and was the first Englishman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907 but his later years were darkened by the death of his son John at the Battle of Loos in 1915. He died in 1936.
Stuart Tresilian was a British artist and illustrator, best known for his illustrations of children's books. He was born in Bristol in 1891, but moved to London with his family where he went on to study at the Royal College of Art and later became an art class teacher.
Stuart served in World War I where he was wounded and captured by the Germans and held at Rastatt, Baden. During his imprisonment he continued to draw. These drawings are now in the Imperial War Museum. He was a brother in the Art Workers' Guild, and was an accomplished graphic artist and book illustrator. He is most famously known for illustrating Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book and Enid Blyton's Adventure series and associated works.
His characters for some of these were based on drawings from the London Zoo. Stuart retired to Buckinghamshire, where he died in the summer of 1974.
Marcus Clapham has always worked in the book trade and was Editorial Director of the Collector's Library for many years. He is also the author, editor or anthologizer of nearly twenty books, including Best Fairy Stories of the World and Poetry of the First World War.