British author Rudyard Kipling is well-known for his many novels, short stories, and poems in which he created a world teeming with unforgettable people, animals, and wisdom. The foundation of his literary career was laid in the gloomy house where his mother left him and his sister to be raised by strangers. Often locked in a moldy basement "playroom" to ponder his misdeeds, Kipling survived by concocting a fantasy life. Here, in this essay by award-winning journalist Robert Wernick, is Kipling's fascinating, surprising, and at times, tragic life story.