Learn More - Classics

These stories are all quite old. They are really famous because they are really good. They are not fairytales or myths or legends.  They are just stories. But they tell wonderful tales of incredible people and animals.

If a story is a classic, it usually means that it is so well loved that it is read over and over and passed from parent to child for years. We hope you also love these stories and that you will pass them on to someone who will love them too!

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde was Irish. He wrote plays, novels, short stories and poems. He was known for being very clever and funny and he was very popular in Victorian London.

While he was at college, Oscar Wilde was laughed at for his style and how he dressed. He loved beautiful things and he had peacock feathers in his room. He didn’t like sport and he had long hair. Some people thought he looked stupid and that he liked girly things. Others thought he was interesting and fashionable.

But Oscar Wilde became really famous. Some of his plays were performed in London and lots of his books were published. This included his stories for children.

But in 1895 there were some people who did not like the way he lived his life and he was arrested. It was a very famous case and Oscar was put in jail. He was called prisoner C.3.3 and he was there for 2 years.

He is still famous for his books, poems and for the funny and clever things he said:

“Life is too important to be taken seriously”
“I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.”

Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, when India belonged to the British Empire. He was named after the lake where his parents met. He was sent to live in England when he was six.

He wrote some very famous books like ‘The Jungle Book’ and ‘Kim’.

Tales of Time has one of his ‘Just So Stories’:

Like many of his Just So Stories, he is telling it to ‘My Best Beloved’ because they were written for his daughter, Josephine.

Can you hear the funny way of talking? This story has lots of funny words because he was exaggerating the style of the formal Indian speech of that time.

We love the words in this audio story.

Here are some quotes from Rudyard Kipling:

“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten”
“Never look backwards or you’ll fall down the stairs.”