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 the two Jungle Books and 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.

Ian Beck is well known as an illustrator as well as more recently a writer of young fiction with the publication of the very succesful Tom Trueheart titles by OUP.

This is his first foray in to the world of teen fiction. Ian lives in West London. He began his career as an illustrator working on album covers including the still in-print classic cover for Elton John's album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.