Rudyard Kipling Autograph Letter Signed to Sir Morgan Crofton.

KIPLING, Rudyard.

$850.00

Item Number: 35017

Single page, folded into quarters on custom writing paper from The Vineyard Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa with “The Vineyard, Newlands, ____ 189_” printed at the header. “Ap. 12, 1898. Dear Morgan Crofton: We are in the last agonies of packing today but I hope to have the honour of calling on the general before 12: so Tomorrow. I am most sorry to have missed him this visit. Very sincerely yours, Rudyard Kipling.” Written to British Army officer Sir Morgan George Crofton during Kipling’s first winter holiday in South Africa during which he was welcomed by a number of Cape Colony’s leading politicians, including the letter’s recipient.

Rudyard Kipling made his first holiday visit to Cape Town, South Africa in early 1898 accompanied by his wife and two young children. Kipling had recently been awarded the title Poet of the Empire of Great Britain and was taking an increasingly political stance in his poetry as illustrated in his most recent poem "Recessional", composed for the occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. He was warmly received in South Africa by some of the most influential politicians of the time whom he developed long-lasting friendships with and led to his interest in the British cause in the Boer War.