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Auction: 16043 - Autographs, Historical Documents, Ephemera and Postal History
Lot: 75

Documents
Rudyard Kipling
1893 (20 December) two page A.L.S. on paper with embossed address "Naulakha, Brattleboro, Vermont" to the American author William H. Rideing (1853-1918), "... I am in receipt of yours of the 18th instant suggesting a 2000-2500 w[ord] article for the Companion. Now that I have seen some of the mothers of the youths who read the paper I may perhaps be able to come nearer to its demands. It is very difficult for me to invent notions but I find in my notebooks the story of a young apprentice in the repairing shops of the E.I.R. [East Indian Railways] our Great Indian railroad. We will suppose he is 18 or 19 – sketch the life of the railway community and a railway town in India (Bengal) and make him mend and bring in, on one piston, a broken down loco. in flood time, as he is travelling to a volunteer rifle match. The tale would introduce the country-bred white of the Indian RR’s – a parsee engine driver and so on – all the difference that there is between an American + an Indian line. I should prefer 3500 w[ords] to turn in but if you find that does not meet your approval kindly let me know and we will try something else. I used to know something of our Indian railway line. It’s community apart. Very many thanks for Sir E[dwin] Arnolds Jungle Life series. I am doing a set of tales on the same subject more or less for St Nicholas, giving the Jungle people’s views of mankind ...". The letter is signed "Rudyard Kipling". The two pages have been previously framed and there is brown staining around the edge and the reverse sides are browned/ Photo

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. Kipling’s works of fiction include "The Jungle Book" (a collection of stories which includes "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"), the "Just So Stories" (1902), "Kim" (1901), and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888). His poems include "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man’s Burden" (1899), and "If—" (1910). 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 one critic described his work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift". Kipling was one of the most popular writers in England, 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 its youngest recipient to date.

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Estimate
£1,200 to £1,500

Sale 16043 Notices
Withdrawn