The Portable Kipling contains selections from The Jungle Books and Soldiers Three ; more than twenty stories, including The Man Who Would Be King , The Cat that Walked by Himself , The Eye of Allah , and the unsettling Mary Postgate ; more than fifty poems; and three essays. The volume also includes a complete chronology and a critical introduction by Irving Howe that permits us to see the formal achievements of Kipling's work as well as to enjoy its abundant pleasures--not least of which is the sheer satisfaction of great storytelling.