Rudyard Kipling, the poet and novelist who, perhaps more than any other writer of this generation, has voiced the militant spirit of the British empire, was born at Bombay, India, December 30, 1865. His father was John Lockwood Kipling. Rudyard was educated at the United Services college, Devonshire, England. Returning to India at the end of his school days, he became the assistant editor of the Civil-Military Gazette, and subsequently was connected with the staff of the Pioneer, a prominent newspaper of the country. The well-known Soldiers Three series and those other of his works which have to do with army life in India were the outcome of his Pioneer experiences. In 1892 he married Caroline Balestier at Brattleboro, Vermont. Mr. Kipling has not only a marvelous faculty of describing things as they actually are, but he also has the prophetic instinct of the true poet. As a case in point may be cited his famous Recessional, written at the end of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. The full significance of the poem was only realized by the British during the disastrous and humiliating periods of the Boer war. In prose and poetry he has been alike fruitful. THOMAS NELSON PAGE. Thomas N. Page was born in Oakland, Hanover county, Virginia, April 23, 1853. The Civil war interfered with his education, and left the Page family in an impoverished condition. Nevertheless he, during this period, was gathering material which resulted in the production of those two delightful books of his, Marse Chan and Meh Lady. Later he managed to secure a course at Washington and Lee university. At the law school of the University of Virginia he secured his degree in a year, and, after being admitted to the bar, practiced in Richmond from 1875 to 1893. During his leisure hours he did work which placed him on a high eminence as lecturer and literary man. His books are many, and for the most part have to do with the war between north and south and the reconstruction period following its close. CHARLES MAJOR. Charles Major, the novelist, was born at Indianapolis, Indiana, July 25, 1856. He was educated at the common schools at Shelbyville and Indianapolis, after which he studied law and engaged in practice at Shelbyville. But his literary tastes were stronger than his legal inclinations, and he began to contribute to magazines and to write novels. His most famous book, When Knighthood was in Flower, was issued in 1898, and reached an edition of several hundred thousand. In 1885 he was married to Alice Shaw. NOVELISTS. GERTRUDE FRANKLIN ATHERTON.