Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 - 18 January 1936) was an English author and poet. He is regarded as a major ''innovator in the art of the short story''; his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature; and his best works speak to a versatile and luminous narrative gift. Kipling was one of the most popular writers in English, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English language writer to receive the prize, and to date he remains its youngest recipient.