Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
Believe it or not, the British had control of India for a long time, and Kipling is one British writer who is very closely associated with India. He was actually born in Bombay. (Source.)
Well, it seems that some people didn't have too many nice things to say about old Rudyard. The great George Orwell, for example, said this: "Kipling is a jingo imperialist, he is morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting." (Source.)
Kipling was a really big deal in his day. He won the prestigious Nobel Prize in 1906. (Source.)
"If" is a super-duper popular poem. In a BBC survey in 1995, it was voted the best poem of all. (Source.)