Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born on 30 December 1865 to John and Alice Kipling. At the time of Joseph's birth the Kiplings had recently arrived in India. They had moved to the city of Bombay (now Mumbai) from England with the intention of starting a new life and helping the British government manage the continent. Young Joseph Kipling loved the exciting life that came with living in India. She often explored the local markets with her nanny and sister, learned the language at a young age and fell in love with the country and culture. This life he loved was taken from him when his parents sent him back to England to begin a formal British education at the age of 6. He lived in Southsea, England, where he attended school and lived with a foster family, the Holloways. Kipling struggled to fit in at school and his new home did not provide a loving environment. Mrs. Holloway was rude, hitting and abusing her young adopted son. Kipling found comfort in books and stories. With few friends, he spent his time reading. He esteemed authors such as Daniel Defoe, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Wilkie Collins. Mrs. Holloway disapproved of Kipling's reading, inciting Kipling to secretly bring her his books. He also pretended to play in his room by moving furniture on the floor while he read. At the age of 11, Kipling was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. A visitor to the Holloway home noticed the child's unhealthy condition and immediately contacted his mother. His mother rushed to England and rescued Joseph from his foster family and placed him in a new school in Devon. There, Kipling became successful and discovered his talent for writing, eventually becoming editor of the school newspaper. Kipling's parents didn't have enough money to make good on... half the paper... efforts. In 1915 he traveled to France to report firsthand from the trenches. He encouraged his son to enlist and, when he was rejected due to poor eyesight, Kipling managed to get John a position as a second lieutenant in the Irish Guards. That same year, the Kiplings received news that John had disappeared in France. Kipling left for France to find John, but nothing came of his search, his son's body was never found. He returned to England to mourn the loss of another son. Kipling continued to write into the last decades of his life, but the days of writing children's stories were long gone. Eventually grief and age took their toll on Kipling and his wife. Kipling suffered from a painful ulcer and died on 18 January 1936. His ashes were buried next to the graves of authors Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey..