Preserving art and literature is an important process for maintaining cultural heritage and ensuring that key works are made available for future generations to study.
The page proofs of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book – complete with the author’s handwritten poems – have been allocated to Cambridge University Library as part of the UK Government’s Acceptance in Lieu scheme.
The scheme allows those who have a bill to Inheritance Tax or one of its earlier forms to pay the tax by transferring important cultural, scientific or historic objects and archives to the nation.
The Watt collection joins other Kipling material already at Cambridge University Library, including his corrected autograph manuscript of perhaps his most celebrated work, the poem ‘If—’, which has regularly been voted as one of the UK’s favourite poems.
As well as multiple volumes of Kipling proofs, including Rewards and Fairies and Puck of Pook’s Hill, the collection of works (from the literary agent AP Watt) also includes an array of manuscripts by various writers from the 1870s to the 1920s, a period that marks the heyday of the popular English novel.
This includes the works of Sir Walter Besant, novelist, co-founder and Chairman of the Society of Authors. Included in the collection is the manuscript of one of his most significant novels, Katharine Regina, which dealt with impoverished working-class women, social problems and societal reform.
Kipling is a somewhat controversial writer when viewed through the lens of 2024. The author’s views on colonialism and the Empire have led to a critical reinterpretation of his life and work in the 21st century.
Yet Kipling’s place in British culture cannot be underestimated. He was one of the most beloved British author of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1907, he became the first English-language writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Commenting on the deposition, Sir Chris Bryant, the UK Government Arts Minister, said: “The Jungle Book is a family classic that has spawned countless other works, including the famous Disney 1967 cartoon film and the 2016 film. Now that these proofs will be available at Cambridge University Library, I’m sure they will provide more than the bare necessities for academics, aspiring novelists and self-confessed book worms.”
Meanwhile, Pembroke College, Cambridge, has been allocated the travelling writing desk and contents which belonged to The Moonstone author Wilkie Collins. The desk was also among the archive of material from the AP Watt collection.
Collins’ desk is identical in design to the one used by his friend Charles Dickens and dates from the mid-nineteenth century. Collins is known to have taken it travelling with him abroad, including his trip to the USA in 1873 and the desk contains his last diary, including entries in the hand of his amanuensis (literary assistant) Harriet Bartley recording his passing.
