Typed Letter Signed ("Rudyard Kipling") to Sam Brown, regretting that he is unable to read his manuscript as he is "extraordinarily busy at present".
KIPLING, Rudyard (1865-1936). Writer.
Typed Letter Signed ("Rudyard Kipling") to Sam Brown, regretting that he is unable to read his manuscript as he is "extraordinarily busy at present".
Half page 4to, Bateman's, Burwash, Sussex, 3 December 1915.
Kipling had evidently been sent a manuscript by Brown, but he regrets that ". . . I am unable to read your MSS. and to give you an opinion on it, which you so kindly say you would value. I am extraordinarily busy at present, having undertaken certain work which I cannot put aside as long as the war lasts. I am very sensible of your kind desire to have my opinion . . ."
Kipling gave of his time and his efforts unstintingly during the course of the First World War. 1915 saw at least three works published by him, on the Army, the Navy and the war in France; the flow of books and articles in support of the war effort continued through the following years. Though many later saw him as an imperialist and jingoistic in his opinions, there is no doubt as to the sincerity of his purpose at the time.
His emotional state when writing this can only be guessed at. In August 1915, the month of his eighteenth birthday, Kipling's only son John went to France, serving with the Irish Guards. A month later, he was reported missing at the battle of Loos. His body was not found.
