Dear Michael,
You will have seen my listing of the collected and uncollected verse, at
http://www.kipling.org.uk/soc_fra.htm
and you probably guessed that this is a work in progress. I have
another sixteen columns of information, with headings such as
"Influences" and "Verse form". Some of these are finding their way
onto the Themes database, but I should really bite the bullet and
commit a few more columns to the NRG site. Dating is probably one of
the most difficult to justify as an internet source. We know how
opinion (and error) can become widely disseminated fact, almost over
night.
Now, to "Rebirth". The Harbord Readers' Guide gives remarkably
definite dates for some verse, based on clues such as notes in
Carrie's diary. "Rebirth" (as noted in my list) was collected in the
Inclusive Edition of the Verse in 1919, but the earliest date we have
for it is the publication of which you are aware, in "A Diversity of
Creatures" (1917).
Of the fourteen verses in that volume, I have traced only two as
published elsewhere previously, and these are "MacDonough's Song" and
"Jobson's Amen". The last four lines of the former are in "As Easy as
A.B.C.", which was published in magazines in 1912. Similarly, you can
find evidence of Jobson in Pall Mall magazine (and others) in 1914,
used as a heading to "A Return to the East".
I would be fascinated to hear of any earlier glimpse of the other
twelve. If the Complete Verse is to be chronologically arranged, this
kind of research is essential.
Thank you for an interesting, and possibly galvanic question.
John
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