>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington D.C.
>> Mark Dimunation: Hi everyone.
Welcome back for those
of you who look familiar.
And if not, welcome
to Thursdays at three,
part of the rare book
forum here at the Rare Book
and Special Collections Division
at the Library of Congress.
I'm Mark Dimunation, I'm
Chief of the division.
We're very excited today because
this has been a project that's
been brewing for
quite some time.
Debra Wynn is a cataloger in
the rare book cataloging team
and a great colleague and
companion for those of us
down in the rare
book reading room.
For many years now,
she's been involved
in processing several Kipling
collections in the division.
Only at the Library
of Congress do we talk
about multiple collections
of the same author.
And has been doing it at such a
level of specificity and detail
that she's become an expert
in her own right on Kipling.
Not just bibliographically,
but also in terms
of the subject of Kipling.
When the proposal for the
World War I exhibit came out,
it seemed a natural to
highlight the collections here
in the rare book
division of Kipling
in relationship to World War I.
Debra started this,
how many years ago now?
Five? Six?
Seven?
>> Debra Wynn: We
started cataloging 2006.
>> Mark Dimunation: You see,
as I was saying, in 2006,
which is really like 11
years ago, which is how work
at the Library of
Congress feels, you know.
Just recently, like 11 years
ago, we started this project.
And she was, became a consultant
immediately for a collector
of great note and strength.
Not on there.
There's some seats back
here also on the benches.
And actually became a
consultant for a collector
as she was helping him refine
and do his bibliography
for his collection as well.
So, without any further
ado, everyone settled?
>> Yep.
>> Mark Dimunation: Please join
me in welcoming Debra Wynn.
[ Applause ]
>> Debra Wynn: Thank you, Mark.
I'm going to read
my presentation,
because I get nervous.
This way I can stay on track.
Thank you all for coming today.
My name is Debra Wynn, and I'm
a senior cataloging specialist
in the Rare Materials Section
at the Library of Congress.
If you know me at all, you
would know that I often think
of Rudyard Kipling, ever since a
colleague of mine, now retired,
and I had the task back
in 2006 of revisiting
and re-cataloging the Kipling
materials held in the Library
of Congress Rare Book and
Special Collections Division.
As a rare materials cataloger,
working here at the Library
of Congress, we never know what
treasures might cross our desk
to catalog or what collection
we might be assigned to work on.
That's what I like
about working here.
When cataloging the Kipling
materials, I must admit,
the Kipling bug bit me hard.
When I heard that the Library
was planning a big exhibition
to commemorate the
100th anniversary
of the American entry into World
War I, I immediately thought
of Rudyard Kipling, this
time with good reason.
When you learn that
Kipling advised presidents
and prime ministers to make
the case to strengthen defense
and be ready for war and
then lost his son in that war
in 1915, but burdened with
grief, continued to speak
and write and use his
influence in the public sphere,
you know you're dealing
with someone special.
On examination, this
bard of empire,
one of the most popular
writers of his day,
continued creating literary work
at an astonishing rate during
the time of the conflict.
Most people may be familiar
with Kipling's poetry.
Who didn't receive a greeting
card at high school graduation
with Kipling's most famous
poem, or a version of it, of If.
Kipling's stories
written for children
such as The Jungle
Books and the Just
So Stories are still
read and cherished.
Disney just made a remake
in 2016 of The Jungle Book
in addition to the 1967 musical
version I loved as a child.
Maybe you've heard or remember
Frank Sinatra singing the snappy
version of On the
Road to Mandalay.
Others may recognize old movies
based on Kipling's works,
such as Captains
Courageous, Gunga Din,
The Light that Failed, Kim,
or The Man Who Would be King,
to just name a few examples.
We still know a bit of Kipling,
but many of us today may be less
familiar with him and his work.
My argument today would
be, have a closer look.
There's a lot of surprising,
worthwhile, creative work
by Rudyard Kipling relevant
today worth examining
that people in general
know little about.
There are a lot of
preconceptions
about this writer
we could address.
My task today is to give a
brief outline of Kipling's life
and work, but to circle
back, to focus on that period
between 1914 and 1918
during World War I and tie
in how the war affected him,
and in particular, his writings.
This task is made
more pleasurable today
by having some selective
items chosen from the Library
of Congress Rare Books Special
Collections Division's Kipling
collection on display, as well
as reference to other works
by Rudyard Kipling as
guideposts along our way.
Because one of the highlights
of the current Library
of Congress public exhibit
echoes of the Great War,
American experiences of World
War I, includes a 1918 letter
of condolence from Rudyard
Kipling to Theodore Roosevelt.
I will also point
out connections
between these two men and
highlight some special Roosevelt
and Kipling items
in the Library's
collections before I return
to the main themes
of my talk today.
Rudyard Kipling and
his American-born wife,
Caroline Balestier
lived near Brattleboro,
Vermont, from 1893 until 1896.
Kipling spent six weeks
in the spring of 1895
in Washington D.C. His friends
in Washington included John Hay
and William Hallet
Phillips, who had interceded
with the Grover Cleveland
administration to open
up a post office in
Dummerston, Vermont,
just to handle all the
additional mail being sent
to Rudyard Kipling.
It was through Phillips and Hay
that Kipling met Theodore
Roosevelt, who was serving then
in Washington as Civil
Service Commissioner.
Roosevelt and Kipling
became good friends
and corresponded regularly after
Kipling had permanently moved
to England up until
Theodore Roosevelt's death
in January 1919, two
months after the armistice.
The Library of Congress
manuscript division holds the
papers of Teddy Roosevelt and
the Roosevelt family papers
of his son, Kermit,
and daughter, LaBelle.
In these collections, there
are 14 letters from Kipling
to Roosevelt written
between 1897 and 1918.
In 1898, Kipling wrote the
poem, The White Man's Burden
and sent it to Theodore
Roosevelt prior
to its publication
in McClure's Magazine
and in multiple newspaper
outlets.
His controversial poem written
about the Spanish-American
War exhorts the United States
to follow the British
Empire's example and take
on the responsibility of
being an imperial power
in the Philippians and in Cuba.
As Mary Hamer of The
Kipling Society writes,
"This verse is one of
the most often quoted
and most regularly
misunderstood poems."
Included on display
today is a copy
of Kipling's poem Great Heart
dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt
and inscribed and sent to
Kermit Roosevelt after the death
of his father on
January 6, 1919, or 1819.
The Library of Congress
Rare Book
and Special Collections
Divisions has not one,
but four collections
of materials related
to British author
Rudyard Kipling.
The Chandler Kipling Collection
was given to the Library in 1937
and 1938 by Rear Admiral
Lloyd H. Chandler,
who gathered Kipling
text from 846 prose works
and over 1,100 verse
pieces in preparation
for a Kipling bibliography.
The Library has his 294
loose-leaf volume type script
which he compiled, but it
was never fully published.
The Carpenter Kipling Collection
was presented to the Library
in 1941 by Mrs. Lucile
Russell Carpenter and includes
around 1,675 Kipling items
owned by her husband,
William Montel Carpenter,
a Chicago area businessman
Kipling enthusiast
and collector.
In 1984 and 1987, this circa
2,500 item H. Dunscombe Colt
Kipling Collection was given
by Mrs. H. Dunscombe
Colt to the Library.
Lastly, the Library's own
Kipling Collection contains
over 500 items acquired
through past copyright deposits
or transfers from the Library's
existing general collections
with additional Kipling
[inaudible] acquired
specifically for the Rare Book
and Special Collections
Division, either purchased
or given by other donors.
These four collections,
totaling over 6,000 items,
contain printed editions,
printing variance,
pirated editions, auction
catalogs, magazines, journals,
association copies, manuscripts,
letters, photographs, drawings,
sheet music, realia and
ephemera, either written
by Kipling or related to
Kipling's life and work.
Rudyard Kipling was born in
Bombay on December 30, 1865,
son and first child of
John Lockwood Kipling,
an artisan teacher
of architectural sculpture
and his wife, Alice.
He also had a younger
sister, Beatrice,
known as Trix [phonetic].
His mother, Alice, was one
of four remarkable
MacDonald sisters,
who all married famous men.
They were famous in
their own right, too.
Sisters Georgiana married
Edward Burne-Jones,
the eminent Pre-Raphaelite
painter.
Agnes married Edward
Poynter, artist and President
of the Royal Academy of Arts.
And Louisa married Alfred
Baldwin, businessman and father
of Stanley Baldwin, later
Conservative Prime Minister.
These family connections
were very important
to Kipling throughout his life.
Young Rudyard spent his earliest
years in Bombay, but at the age
of five was sent back
for an unhappy stay
with a foster family England.
When he was 12, he went
to the United Services
College at Westward Ho!
In Devonshire, English
public school
for the sons of military
Officers.
In 1882, age 16, he
returned to India
where his parents still
lived to work as a journalist
and newspaper editor of the
Civil and Military Gazette
in Lahore and later
at The Pioneer,
it's sister paper, in Allahabad.
In his spare time, he
wrote poems and stories
which were published
alongside with his reporting.
When these were collected
and published as books,
they formed the basis
of his early fame.
After a trip to the Far East
and across North American,
Kipling returned to England in
1889 where at the age of 25,
his reputation as a gifted
writer had preceded him.
He quickly met up with many
important literary figures
at the time such as Henry
James, Arthur Conan Doyle,
Rider Haggard and
Edward Goss [phonetic]
and continued to write.
After the death of
an American friend
and literary collaborator,
Wolcott Balestier,
he married Wolcott's
sister, Caroline,
known as Carrie,
in January 1892.
After another world trip
he returned with Carrie
to her family home in
Brattleboro, Vermont,
with the aim of settling
down there.
It was in Brattleboro where
he wrote Captains Courageous
and The Jungle Books and where
the Kiplings first two children,
Josephine and Elsie, were born.
Anchor babies.
After four years in Vermont,
a quarrel with Rudyard's
brother-in-law drove the
Kiplings back to
England in 1896,
and the following year they
moved to Rottingdean in Sussex.
Their son, John, was born
in 1897 in the vacation home
of Rudyard's aunt
Georgiana Burne-Jones.
Soon the Kipling family
moved into their own place.
Kipling had become
regarded as the poet, sorry,
people's laureate and
the poet of empire,
and he produced more
memorial poems and stories,
including Kim, Stalky and
Co, and the Just So Stories.
While the family was on visit to
the United States in early 1899,
Kipling and his daughter,
Josephine,
both became gravely
ill with pneumonia.
Tragically, his daughter died.
Eventually, in 1902,
the family moved
into a remote 17th century house
called Bateman's near Burwash
in Sussex, where he spent the
remaining years of his life.
Rudyard Kipling turned down many
awards, including a knighthood,
the poet laureateship
and the order of merit.
But in 1907, he did accept the
Nobel Prize for literature,
being the first English
writer and the youngest
at age 41 ever to
win that honor.
From 1900 to 1908,
Kipling spent many winters
in a house near Cape
Town, South Africa.
Kipling practiced
journalism again and wrote
for the Army's newspaper, The
Friend, while in South Africa.
Among his friends were
Cecil Rhodes, Lord Milner,
the British Governor
the Cape Colony,
and Dr. Leander Starr Jameson,
on whose personal qualities
Kipling's most famous poem,
If, extoled.
If, incidentally, was considered
by BBC poll a few years ago
to be the people's
favorite poem in England,
far surpassing any
poetry by Shakespeare
or any other British
author in popularity.
I think they got trolled.
Kipling traveled a great deal.
But maybe not.
That's why I say, we're going
to look at both sides here.
The Kiplings traveled a
great deal, and at the outset
of another trip in January
1936, Rudyard Kipling died
of complications of an ulcer.
His autobiography, Something
of Myself, was written in 1935,
the last year of his life and
was published posthumously.
Early in 1900, Kipling made
the first of his annual visits
to South Africa where at the
outbreak of the second Boer War,
he saw for himself how
ill-prepared British
soldiers were.
His 1903 book of
poetry, The Five Nations,
celebrates the imperial ties
between Australia, New Zealand,
Canada, the Cape Colony in
South Africa and Great Britain.
It cemented his reputation
as the poet of empire.
This volume includes Kipling's
poem The White Man's Burden.
A later collection of
stories, traffics [phonetic]
and discoveries published in
1904, contains the short story,
The Army of a Dream,
urging preparation for war.
Kipling wrote letters,
attended meetings,
and as a public figure
was often called upon
to give speeches where, among
many themes, civic duty,
imperial responsibility,
preparedness
and military training
were most common.
As a famous person, his
remarks were frequently reported
in the press.
After Austria Hungary declared
war on Serbia on July 28, 1914,
Russia and Germany
declared war on August 1st,
and other countries
soon followed.
Kipling's son, John,
who had poor eyesight
like his father,
wanted to join up.
He was granted a waiver
and joined the military
regiment of the Irish Guards.
It is argued sometimes that
Kipling forced his son to join,
but indications in letters
would suggest otherwise.
That John Kipling, like
many young men at the time,
wanted to join the
Army on his own accord.
Rudyard Kipling did act on
behalf of his son by writing
to his old friend Bobs, Field
Marshal Frederick Roberts,
now Honorary Colonel
of the Regiment
of the Irish Guards
to intervene.
John Kipling, barely
17, was commissioned
as a Second Lieutenant
in the Second Battalion
of the Irish Guards
on August 5, 1914.
In September 1914, Kipling's
poem, For All We Have and Are,
a battle cry for England
to prepare for war
with Germany was
published in The Times.
In a paper, Kipling and the
Great War propagandas given
at a conference in Bologna
in September 2016 and soon
to be published in condensed
form in the Kipling Journal,
Kipling bibliographer David
Alan Richards outlines the
establishment in September 1914
of the War Propaganda Bureau
and the role that British
authors, including Kipling,
played writing articles meant
to sway public opinion in allied
and neutral countries.
Kipling, always a fierce
defender of his own copyright,
ceded his rights to
the British Admiralty
for propaganda purposes for
the duration of the war only
but also made sure to
copyright his writings first.
The British government,
Kipling's British
literary agent A. S. Watt,
and Kipling's American
publisher F. N. Doubleday,
coordinated the publication
of his articles
to simultaneously
appear in print
on both sides of the Atlantic.
In 1914, Kipling wrote
articles and poems that appeared
in the newspaper, and at the
same time, were published
in the United States in
pamphlet or broadside form
to secure copyright for them.
Many of his poems were included
in compilations or gift books
for moral support or to raise
funds for the war effort.
For example, The Outlaws, a
scathing attack of Germany,
was included in the
British and American edition
of King Albert's book and
later published by Kipling
in the years between in 1917.
This poem, like many
Kipling poems,
was printed in broadside
form in limited quantities
with the added purpose
of securing copyright.
The Library of Congress has many
of these rare valuable
copyright deposits
in its Kipling Collection.
Also, in 1914, Kipling wrote
a series of articles published
in the Daily Telegraph in
England as the new Army
in training and in
copyright deposit pamphlets
in the United States under
the title The New Army,
which were also distributed
to various American
newspapers for publication.
In 1915, following on the
heels of The New Army,
Kipling traveled to the French
front and wrote France at War,
preceded by his poem
France in a series
of six articles collectively
known
as the Fringes of the Fleet.
Five of these articles
were preceded by poems,
four of which, with Kipling's
permission, were set to music
by Sir Edward Elgar in 1917.
And they went on a road show.
In 1916, other articles
and pamphlets followed.
Tales of the Trade
about submarine warfare,
Destroyers at Jutland about the
Naval battle between the Germans
and the British
in the [inaudible] off
the coast of Denmark.
And the compilation sea
warfare the included The Fringes
of the Fleet, Tales of the
Trade, I'm not there yet,
and Destroyers at Jutland, as
well as the poem The Neutral.
The Neutral was highly critical.
It's a poem that Kipling
was highly critical
of the early US stance
of neutrality.
Once the United States
entered the war,
Kipling changed the title
of the poem to The Question
in subsequent editions.
Okay. In 1916, the Eyes of
Asia were the last series
of articles published in
pamphlet form and deposited
for copyright during the war.
These four articles
about soldiers
in the Indian Army were
suppressed for publication
until May of 1917 when
they finally appeared
in the US my installments in
the Saturday Evening Post.
Kipling was given permission
to read these censored letters
written by Indian Army soldiers
that were deemed unpublishable
in their existing form
because the British government
was concerned how they might
affect morale.
Kipling was able, using his
creative talent, to modify
and distill the essence
of the correspondence
into imaginary letters and was
given permission to publish.
After appearing in print in
the United States in 1917,
they were finally
published as articles
in The Morning Post
in England as well.
In 1917, Kipling traveled to
Italy and wrote a final set
of articles and pamphlets
called The War in the Mountains
about the war on
the Italian front.
These articles appeared
in British, American
and in translation in
Italian and French newspapers.
In addition to writing
articles during the war,
Kipling also was writing
and delivering speeches.
In 1915, Kipling wrote National
Bands, urging the military
to provide musical instruments
for a band for every battalion.
In June 1915, he gave a
speech at Southport reported
in The Times on June 22nd
as a call to the nation
where he urges volunteers
to sign up for military duty
and describes German atrocities.
The Kiplings were devastated
when their son, John,
at the age of 18, was declared
missing and then presumed dead
in the Battle of Loos in
France in September 1915.
It wasn't until 1992 that
the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission located
where John Kipling died
and established his gravesite.
In spite of personal grief and
not knowing what had happened
to his son, Kipling
continued to write and speak.
Other speeches he wrote
were War in the School,
giving December 11, 1915
at Winchester College
at the opening of its new rifle
range, dedicated to the memory
of George Cecil, lived
from 1895 to 1914,
killed early in the war.
Cecil was the son of Kipling's
friends Lord Edward Cecil
and Lady Edward who
later became Lady Milner.
And George Cecil
was the grandson
of the former Prime
Minister, Lord Salisbury.
On display today from the
Cult Kipling Collection is a
photograph of this
Lieutenant George Cecil,
a letter from Kipling to Lady
Milner written in 1914 related
to the investigation of her
son's battlefield death.
This letter is also published
in Thomas Penny's collected
edition of Kipling's works.
If you want to look at it,
Kipling's handwriting
is very hard to read.
The L. C. Colt Kipling
Collection contains a bound
volume containing a type-writing
draft of The Magic Square.
It's a story about the
prehistoric origins
of military drill.
The text is modified from
a speech given October 16,
1917 that was published in
The Hobocaub [phonetic],
being a souvenir
of the Household Officer Cadet
Battalion, Christmas, 1917.
Included in the volume is a
collection of correspondence
with the Hobocaub editor,
George Peter Dudley Wallace.
And that letter is on
display today in that volume.
Two speeches were given at the
US Army Rest Camp at Winnall
Down near Winchester for
the opening of the YMCA Hut
for American officers
on July 20, 1918.
The photograph used for
today's flyer is found
in our Carpenter Kipling
Collection taken on the occasion
on the opening of that building.
It is estimated that about 7,000
American soldiers hear Kipling
speak that day.
Allied troops were
not sent directly
to the front upon their
arrival from overseas.
Numerous rest camps were
set up throughout England
that were vital to control
and transition allied troops
from North America and elsewhere
to allow them to adjust,
complete additional training,
build comradery among the
troops before being shipped off
to the fighting front on
the European continent.
According to a BBC News report,
2 million soldiers passed
through Winnall Down and the
nearby associated rest camp
at Morn Hill near Winchester
between 1914 and 1918.
From 1917, the camp near
Winchester was the base
for American and
Canadian troops.
It is estimated approximately
750,000 Americans passed
through that rest camp
on their way to the war.
No presentation about Kipling
and the Great War
would be complete
without mentioning the
book The Kipling by Kipling
that stopped a bullet
and saved a man's life.
This story was related
in the July 1952 issue
of The Kipling Journal.
Maurice Hamonneau
was a young soldier
in the French Foreign
Legion in World War I.
Fortunately, for him, he
had the French translation
of Kipling's Kim in
his left breast pocket.
A grateful Hamonneau sends his
battle-scarred copy of Kim,
along with his [inaudible]
military medal he had
subsequently received for
bravery to Rudyard Kipling.
Kipling, deeply moved,
accepts these valuable tokens
on the condition that they would
be returned once Hamonneau had
a son.
The collection of 14
letters document the budding
relationship from the initial
contact in 1918 until 1932,
when at Hamonneau's request,
Kipling returns the medal
and the copy of Kim back
to Maurice Hamonneau
for his new son, John.
This collection of items is
in H. Dunscombe Colt's
Kipling Collection.
The special binding incorporates
the medal for bravery
on the inside front cover.
And here's another
Theodore Roosevelt story.
On October 14, 1912, while on
a presidential campaign stop,
an attempt was made on the life
of Theodore Roosevelt
outside a Milwaukee hotel.
He had, fortunately, folded a
50-page speech inside his front
breast pocket that amazedly
also slowed down a bullet.
Roosevelt, injured and bleeding,
insisted on delivering his
90-minute speech before finally
being taken to the
hospital for treatment.
But let's return to Kipling.
Kipling arguably is considered
a master of the short story
and is referred to often
as the poet of empire.
I don't have 90 minutes today,
nor does my prepared text run
for 50 pages, but I did outline
50 poems and ten short stories
with World War I themes
within a short bibliography
that was handed out today.
Major published collections
with World War themes published
during the world worth noting
include A Diversity of
Creatures, published in 1917,
that contained 14 stores and 14
poems, and The Years Between,
a collection of 45
poems and 31 epitaphs.
The title refers to
poetry written in the time
between the Boer Wars
and the Great War.
In the tabletop exhibit,
you will see a few examples
of Kipling's great
war poems and stories.
Most notably, I would draw
your attention to our copy
of the galley proofs with
handwritten corrections
of the short story Mary
Postgate, first published
in 1915 in Nash's and Pall Mall
Magazine and later included
in the 1917 edition of A
Diversity of Creatures.
The Kipling scholar and
biographer Harry Ricketts states
in his 1999 biography of Kipling
that Mary Postgate was arguably
the finest short story inspired
by the Great War.
Kipling's cousin, Oliver
Baldwin, described the story
as the wickedest story ever
written, as it was meant to be.
In the story, and
English woman refuses
to help a downed German flyer,
steals his gun, holds it on him,
watches him die in
her back garden.
Kipling distills his hatred for
the Germans to disturbing end.
Kipling's war poetry runs the
entire range of humor, pride,
grief, fear, disbelief,
outrage and outright hatred.
For me, Kipling's
poem A Deathbed,
written in 1918,
was a revelation.
It can truly be considered a
modern poem and is so different
in tone from Kipling's
other poetry.
This poem imagines
that Kaiser Wilhelm II
of Germany is dying
of throat cancer.
There is the dialogue
between the patient,
the doctor and the narrator.
It is a poem that
deserves to be read.
I'm not going to read all of it.
"This is the state
above the law.
The state exists
for the state alone.
This is the gland at
the back of the jaw
and an answering lump
by the collarbone.
Some die shouting
in gas or fire.
Some die silent by
shell and shot.
Some die desperate
caught on the wire.
Some die suddenly,
this will not.?
It goes on.
Compare the distilled
hatred in A Death-Bed
to the grief expressed
in My Boy Jack,
a poem that first
prefaced untitled,
the printing pamphlet The
Destroyers in Jutland in 1916.
Compare either poem to
one of Kipling's epitaphs
of the war wherein the
common form Kipling writes,
"If any question why we died,
tell them because
our fathers lied."
In May 1917, the Imperial
War Graves Commission,
now the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission, was established
to oversee the burial and
commemorate the war dead
through the British Empire.
Kipling was a member
since inception
and in 1919 wrote the
preliminary report,
The Graves of the
Fallen at the request
of the other commissioners to
lend his name to help advertise
and promote the schemes
of the commission.
Kipling was active for many
years, visiting cemeteries,
giving speeches and
working behind the scenes
on their behalf.
According to Debra E. Wiggins
writing in your article,
Rudyard Kipling and the Imperial
War Graves Commission published
in the March 2005 Kipling
Journal, Kipling was responsible
for composing most of
the inscriptions used
in British memorials
in French cathedrals.
The words placed on the
headstones of unmarked graves
"A soldier of the Great War ..."
known unto God.
He's also credited with the
choice of scripture taken
from the apocryphal book
[inaudible] chapter 44,
verse 14, "Their name liveth
for evermore," that is inscribed
on every one of the over 400
stone of remembrance memorials
in over 500 cemeteries.
In France and Belgium alone,
there are 315,000
unknown soldiers' graves.
In 1922, Kipling accompanied
King George V on a trip
to France in Belgium
and is credited
to have written the words of
the speech that the King gave
at the coastal cemetery
of Terlincthun in France.
Kipling visited dozens of
imperial war cemeteries
in France and Belgium
through the 1920s.
He traveled to Egypt in
1929, visiting graves there.
In 1930 he was present at the
unveiling of the War Memorial
to commemorate the
Battle of Loos
in which his son John was lost.
Kipling was overcome
with emotion
and could not give his
prepared speech at the ceremony.
After the war, Rudyard
Kipling continued to write.
He took on the project of
writing The Irish Guards
in the Great War, a
two-volume history
of his son John's
regiment published in 1923.
Two poems, The Survival and
The Vineyard and seven stories,
A Friend of the Family, The
Gardner, In the Interest
of the Breatharian, The
Jay Nights [phonetic],
Madonna of the Trenches, On
the Gate, A Tale of Sixteen
and Sea Constables, a Tale
of Fifteen, were published
in Debits and Credits in 1926.
These stories include World
War I settings or themes.
On display today is
a draft type script
from the Colt Kipling Collection
of this humorous story
about St. Peter dealing with
the administrative headaches
of allowing so many of
the war dead into heaven.
Kipling's wife, Carrie,
thought it made too light
of war casualties, so it was not
published for another decade.
Our 1916 typescript
bears the earlier title
of The Department of Death.
A selection of many of Kipling's
speeches, including a number
of those given during the war
were collected and published
in A Book of Words in 1928.
Thomas Penny, who edited
the Collected Letters
of Rudyard Kipling,
also gathered Kipling's
uncollected speeches
and published the second
Book of Words in 2008.
Today, I wanted to
focus on the work
of Rudyard Kipling during
the time of the Great War,
as well as his later writings
with World War I themes.
There's a lot here,
so my hope is that you
in the audience today come away
with a better understanding
and perhaps a greater
curiosity to explore further
on your own the work
of this writer.
This was just a taste.
Let's see, this body
of extraordinary
and varied work written
by Rudyard Kipling will
take much longer than to day
to delve into, to explore.
We welcome you to the task.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>> Mark Dimunation: Thank you.
>> Debra Wynn: I left
time for questions.
>> Mark Dimunation:
She did indeed.
So, we're going to spend
some time taking questions,
and then we're going to give
you a little bit of time
to take a look at the exhibit
that Debra has put out.
So when we do do that, we'll
ask everyone who's sitting
on the benches on either side
to put the benches away and move
around and maybe help us clear
out some of the chairs as well.
I want to finish the Hamonneau
story that Debra started,
because it gives you, Kipling,
of course, is always a character
that can draw different
opinions.
But there's a moment of
levity that Kipling brings
to the Hamonneau story, which is
he had said that he would hold
on to those items until
Hamonneau had a son,
which he did, who
he named after John.
And he asked Kipling
to write a letter
to his young son,
which Kipling did.
And to give his son a word of
advice, and it produces one
of my favorite moments in the
entire rare book collection
which Kipling says,
your father has asked me
to give you some advice, and
when you are older and listen
to people as opposed
to being listened to,
he will tell you the
story of a great war
in which his life was
saved by a book of mine,
for I am a writer of books.
That's how he was writing this
letter to this young child.
Your father asked me to
give you a word of advice,
and this is what I'll tell you.
Always carry a book with you.
[ Laughter ]
The book should be
between 350 and 400 pages.
Don't carry a hardcover book
because it's hard to put
in your breast pocket.
Softcover, and this is
most important, he says.
Always carry it in your
pocket, your left breast pocket.
As Debra has pointed out, this
is a rich and varied collection.
So, let's have a, we have
time for a few questions,
and then we'll close down
and give you a chance
to look at materials.
Go ahead, Margaret.
>> Debra, the book Debits
and Credits, and it had,
it looked like Rudyard
Kipling with a sort
of like reversed swastika.
>> Debra Wynn: Yes.
>> So can you just talk
about this for a second?
>> Debra Wynn: Yes.
Kipling, as I said, grew up
in India, and the swastika
in India is considered
a good luck sign.
And he used all that in all
his publications until the 30s
when Hitler came to power.
And then he requested
Doubleday to quit putting
that on his books because
it had a new connotation.
>> Thanks.
>> Debra Wynn: Yeah.
>> Really great speech.
Thank you so much.
You stressed the copyright
issues with him really
in a great way, which
made me think,
what compelled him to do that?
Because it seemed like
really a smart thing to do.
How did he know to do that?
>> Debra Wynn: Well, yes.
When I said that he had
taken the trip from India,
and he ended up in
North America in 1889,
it's said that he spotted
his work Barrack-Room Ballads
for sale.
And he said, wait, I
didn't authorize this.
And this was before the 1890
copyright law came in, right.
So it was fair game out there.
You liked something, you
published it, you know,
the author got no rights,
no royalties to it.
>> Mark Dimunation: Dickens
did a lot about that too.
>> Debra Wynn: Yeah, Dickens
suffered from this as well.
So, Kipling, knowing this,
that's what makes our Kipling
Collection so wonderful is
that whenever he wrote a poem,
an essay, a speech, something,
he told his publisher,
print it off, a few copies,
submit it for copyright.
And many of those things
never got published,
but they got deposited
in the copyright office.
And he just, he just was irked
about the copyright issue.
And I think it became
like a burr in his side.
There's one wonderful thing I
like in the Kipling
Collection not on display today
which is a printing
called Putnam.
And it's printed on a
piece of toilet paper,
because that's what he
thought about George Putnam
and the way he treated
his writings.
>> Mark Dimunation:
That was subtle.
That was really subtle.
>> Debra Wynn: But
that was printed
on Burne-Jones' press,
so you'd like that.
[ Inaudible ]
Yeah.
>> Kipling was such an
unpardoned imperialist.
Did the loss of his son, John,
change him in the slightest
from being an imperialist
to opposing war.
Especially that quote
you gave us about,
tell them your father lied.
>> Debra Wynn: Yeah, it's --
>> Is there any, do you think
there's any progress, change?
>> Debra Wynn: I'd like to
think the best of people.
I think in this case, he
was always conflicted.
And it reminds me of
the poem, you know,
I have the two sides
of my head, you know.
He could keep two
ideas in his head.
But the other quote I
was thinking of when he,
right before he died, he was,
he said something to the effect
that I've been called
an imperialist,
and I don't think
that's such a bad thing.
So, yeah, I'm sure he was
deeply affected by it.
He took it personally.
I mean he questioned --
>> For the rest of his life.
>> Debra Wynn: Of course, he
questioned himself was, did I,
was I too positive, optimistic,
rah, rah, about this too.
>> Didn't he also bring pressure
to make it possible for his son
to join the Army, where the
Army would not accept him --
>> Debra Wynn: The
Army didn't take him.
That's why he intervened
with Colonel Roberts.
Yeah. And so he took that,
but on the other hand,
the other letters within the
family, there's one here,
there's a collection to Oliver
Baldwin, his second cousin,
that no, they were
all gung ho about it
So it could have
been, I don't know.
I don't know.
It's, like the one
thing on display,
that's from Kipling himself,
it's a tag for an
Irish Guard's uniform.
It's kind of fun.
But I don't know.
I mean, it's, I get the
impression that he was
so duty-bound, and that was
always his theme whenever he was
speaking was we have a duty.
It's our responsibility.
And I don't think he
wavered from that.
But, on the other hand, he
was a very emotional person
and was hurt deeply.
And if he could do it
another way, he would have.
Yeah.
>> Was he himself called
earlier to go into the service,
or that didn't enter
into his thinking?
>> Debra Wynn: Who, Rudyard?
>> Yes.
>> Debra Wynn: No,
he was too old.
He always admired the
soldiers, you know.
>> He could have served in India
or in other imperial nations.
>> Debra Wynn: Well,
he was 16 India.
He was so busy on
that newspaper.
I don't think it
occurred to him then.
And then in the Boer War,
he was slightly too old.
And then definitely by World
War I he was way too old.
>> Did he come across
Winston Churchill
in covering the World War?
>> Debra Wynn: I'm
not sure about that.
>> Okay.
>> Debra Wynn: I know
that they intersected
on the War Graves
Commission, but I don't know
about earlier than that.
Yeah.
>> Mark Dimunation:
Time for one more,
then we'll open up
for the exhibit.
Or not, so please join me
in thanking Debra Wynn.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.