CAROLINE KIPLING WRITES TO HER FRIEND ABOUT HER BROTHER AND HER NEW BABY KIPLING (Caroline 'Carrie' Starr Balestier, 1862-1939, American born wife of Rudyard Kipling)

Superb Long Autograph letter to Mrs Mary Hallock FOOTE (1847-1938, American Author and Illustrator) sending "a thousand thanks gracious Lady for your letter. We cherish your kind words which reached us this morning after our first night of 'snuffles'. My mother was attempting to convince us it was not pneumonia and quite usual and harmless when your testimony arrived. You will agree they sound serious won't you? Our little maiden sends you love, asking your pardon if she makes too bold, and hopes to welcome you one day to her very own home. Which we think of a Naulakha. 'Crows Nest' was invented by that all wise newspaper man who knows all one does not do, or think, or feel. Your interest in Benefits Forgot touches us nearly, for my brother cared so much that you should feel it to be an honest-word about the West. We used to arrange to make a pilgrimage to have a talk with you about the great, delightful dreadful West. We know Colorado best, and it was once while we were spending a few months there that Benefits Forgot was planned, but it was worked out in London. On the whole London is nearer the West than New York, it has always seemed to me. If I had been feeling up to rough travelling we should have returned from Vancouver slowly through all that fascinating part of our land, my husband is more anxious to know it well than any other part of America... The daughter - we call her Josephine - thrives, is strong and sturdy and we mean to keep her in the country so she may continue so. She has an English nurse, who promises well - she wrote to ask for the position. I don't expect you the credit the Statement for I well know its a fairy story in appearance. She can't have the baby nights though because of the cold - if only she could. I am learning to keep awake and my husband to sleep but it was not easy. We are very quiet here and go to bed at eight ourselves often...", 4 sides 8vo., on black edged paper, Brattleboro, 19th February

Foote is best known for her illustrated short stories and novels portraying life in the mining communities of the turn-of-the-century American West and for her illustrations of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Longfellow's poems.
Benefits Forgot was a novel published in 1895 co-written by Rudyard Kipling and his brother-in-law Charles Wolcott BALESTIER (1861-1891). He was an American Author and Publisher who visited England in 1888 to secure English manuscripts for Lovell, the publishing company which had published his novel A Fair Device (1886). He is remembered for his collaboration with Rudyard Kipling. He wrote the American chapters for The Naulahka (1892) and Kipling dedicated his Barrack-Room Ballads to him in the same year.
Caroline met Kipling via her brother. She had come to London to keep house and serve as hostess for him.  She taught Kipling how to use a typewriter. When Wolcott Balestier died suddenly of typhoid in 1891, Kipling was distraught and spent time with Miss Balestier, proposing to her via telegram and marrying her a week later. The couple were married in London on January 18th, 1892. The bride was given away by Henry James who exclaimed "It's a union of which I don't forecast the future." The first child, Josephine was born on 29th December 1892 and died at the age of 6 on 6th March 1899 of pneumonia. Kipling's friends and family maintain that he was never the same after Josie's death.

Item Date:  1893

Stock No:  41737      £1475

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