Wednesday February 27, 2013

Trove of Kipling poems discovered

LONDON: An investigation by a US academic has uncovered 50 unpublished poems by British writer Rudyard Kipling in locations including a New York house and the papers of a former cruise-line owner, it was revealed Tuesday.

Thomas Pinney, a professor of English at the University of California, said the discoveries marked a "tremendously exciting time for scholars and fans".

The poems will be published in the first ever complete edition of Kipling's verse due for release on March 7.

The Indian-born author is best known for penning short stories like "The Jungle Book" and poems "Mandalay" and "If", but fell out of favour with many academics over his views on imperialism.

The trove includes poems from World War I and a diatribe against the press.

It reads: "Had you friend a secret / Sorrow, shame or vice - / Have you promised not to tell / What's your lowest price? / All the housemaid fancied / All the butler guessed / Tell it to the public press / And we will do the rest."

Some of the works were discovered in a Manhattan town house while others were found among the papers of a former head of the Cunard Line.

Pinney stressed that many more works are still to be located. "There is a treasure trove of uncollected, unpublished and unidentified work out there," he said. "I discovered another unrecorded item only recently and that sort of thing will keep happening." - AFP

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Wednesday February 27, 2013

Trove of Kipling poems discovered