Kipling letter found in town archives

A LETTER signed by Jungle Book author Rudyard Kipling has been discovered among the archives in a South Yorkshire library.

The typed letter dates from 1912, five years after Kipling had won the Nobel Prize for Literature and three years before he lost his only son, John, at the Battle of Loos. A spokesman for Barnsley Council said: "The letter was sent to the then-Barnsley librarian Frank J Taylor, who was writing a book about Yorkshire dialect, to which the celebrated author was making a contribution.

"It was only discovered when archive staff came to catalogue the surviving Frank Taylor papers in detail. The letter is embossed with the address 'Bateman's, Burwash, Sussex', which was then Kipling's home and is now a museum dedicated to his life.

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"Currently being cleaned and conserved, the letter will be a prime candidate for display in Experience Barnsley, the new museum and archives centre, which is scheduled to open in the town hall in 2012."

Barnsley's archives and local studies library at Barnsley central library in Shambles Street, is open to the public from Monday to Saturday each week and holds a wealth of archives from the history of Barnsley.