Nobel Prize–winning British author best known for such colorful classics as Just So Stories, Captains Courageous, and The Jungle Book. ALS, four pages on two adjoining sheets, 3.75 x 6, personal letterhead, April 30, 1900. A letter to an unspecified Daisy. In part: “The news about The Baby is fine. I hope he’ll continue in his virtue & his fatness. We have two two month old peeps whom we call the twins…. Personally I’d sooner look after one babe for two hours than two peeps for one!…” After some domestic news, Kipling continues: “Now on to National Service League matters. I didn’t deliver any speech. Leo Maxse did that. I only lent the house: C. supplied the grub…. We had close on 150 immortal stain-souls and I think they liked it. But beyond introducing Leo Maxse to the audience your humblest of servants did nowt [sic] in the speaking like. And he ain’t going to neither. If there’s any one I’d do it for it’s you but if I once begin on that dock … my little life will be made a burden to me very fast. I’ve been there and I know. And—low be it spoken—I’m not a good speaker…. When we were at Brown’s l’other day I telephoned to the house and only drew the Butler. He was polite but not what I wanted.” The Leo Maxse Kipling mentions was the conservative journalist Leopold Maxse, longtime editor of the National Review (1893–1932). In fine condition, with mild toning, usual mailing fold, and a few faint water spots resulting in subtle feathering to a few words. COA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.
