Letter written by Rudyard Kipling (ref: CUH/1)

This letter, dated 20th November 1909, was written by Kipling from Bateman’s, the house he bought in 1902 near the village of Burwash in the Sussex Downs. It is an interesting feature of his headed notepaper that it indicates the nearest telegraph office (Burwash) and the nearest train station (Etchingham).

The letter is addressed to Sir William Osler, a Canadian physician and pathologist and later Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University. They may have met originally because Osler’s wife was a distant cousin of Mrs Kipling but they became friends and Osler is credited with much of Kipling’s interest in medical history.

The letter refers to Macphail coming to stay with the Kiplings. This was probably Sir Andrew Macphail, Professor of Medical History at McGill University. Unfortunately, it is not known what the occasion was at the Athenaeum that Macphail and Osler (but not Kipling) were to attend. If anyone can let us know we’d be very interested to hear.

There is no known provenance for the letter. Although it may have been with another letter found inside the College’s copy of Harvey Cushing’s ‘The Life of Sir William Osler’, that does not explain how Cushing came to have it. Cushing was a great admirer of Kipling’s and corresponded with him himself. He may have found the letter while writing Osler’s biography and simply kept it.

• A larger version of the letter is available here