Autograph Letter Signed (“Rudyard Kipling”) to John Fleming [husband of Kipling’s sister Alice “Trix” Fleming] regarding Trix's mental health,

2 pages 8vo, Hôtel du Parc & sa dépendance Hôtel Ibrahim Pacha, Vernet les Bains, France, 13 March 1911.

Kipling’s sister “Trix”’s first experienced mental ill-health in 1898 and, from that time, would sporadically battle with the disease throughout her life. Shortly after the Flemings moved from India to Edinburgh in 1910 Trix received news that her mother had died, sparking a return of her illness, which was further exacerbated by her father’s death in January 1911. This moving letter in which Kipling shows his affection and concern for his sister is written in the aftermath of these dual tragedies. The Kipling family had not been completely in favour of Trix’s marriage to Fleming and were often at odds with the way he managed her care. Although Kipling’s letter to Fleming is a cordial one, there is a hint of the discord between Kipling and his sister’s husband, particularly when he voices his objection to Trix’s being certified, stating “it jars on one”.

“...I am glad that you found T looking better so far as bodily health was concerned. One must remember that the attack has now lasted barely three months ... one can begin to hope that another few weeks may see the turn in the malady. At any rate the fact that she regards the nurse as she does is proof, at least, that she is in sympathetic hands. What her demeanour may be to her family and surroundings is a matter that may depend on a hundred causes to which, in a short visit, one has no clue. It is to be remembered that in the overwhelming number of mental cases they turn for a while against those who are nearest to them. Our weather is rather cold with a falsely blue sky every now and then and a wind like Dornoch Firth [Andrew Carnegie’s house at Skibo, overlooking Dornoch Firth]”

PROVENANCE: This was part of a Kipling family archive that came down through Helen MacDonald, a great niece of Rudyard Kipling's mother Alice MacDonald. Alice's three sisters were married to Edward Burne Jones, Edward Poynter (Artists) and Alfred Baldwin (father of 20th century British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin).

Stock Code: 218383