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According to James McG Stewart's Kipling 'Bibliographical Catologue', edited
by AW Yeats (Stewart/Yeats), p 542, this story appeared in the NZ Herald on 3
Jan 1892 and was reprinted 20 Jan 1936. Presumably if Kipling wrote the
story, he did so before leaving New Zealand on 14 November 1891 or while at
sea en route to Colombo which he reached in early December. He could have
mailed it from either Melbourne or Adelaide. It is unlikely that he wrote it
any later as Wolcott Balestier died on 6 December 1891 and Kipling began his
rush home which ended with his marriage to Carrie Balestier and ill fated
honeymoon to the USA and Japan.
Stewart includes the story in Appendix B, a long list of 'Uncollected Prose
and Verse.' The problems of accurate attribution are discussed in the Appendix
but just before the entry for 1892 Stewart or Yeats writes ' From this point
on all items included in the list are either signed by Kipling or are reports
and/or extracts from speeches or interviews ascribed to Kipling by the
publications in which they appear'.
As to the phrase 'Truth is a naked lady, etc.', this appears at the end of the
story 'A Matter of Fact' in 'Many Inventions'. There the phrase in full is
'...for Truth is a naked lady, and if by accident she is drawn up from the
bottom of the sea, it behoves a gentleman either to give her a print petticoat
or to turn his face to the wall and vow that he did not see.'
According to Stewart/Yeats, p121, the story 'A Matter of Fact' was entered for
American copyright Jan 25-30 1892 (3 weeks after the NZ Herald story). The
first English edition of 'Many Inventions' appeared 15 months later in May
1893 and the American edition was entered for copyright on th 18th of that
month.
Apart from the assertion by Stewart/Yeats that 'Our Lady at Wairakie' can be
safely attributed to Kipling, I think the fact that the phrase in question
appears in a major book by Kipling a very short time after it appeared in a
slight story for a small readership the other side of the world just after he
had spent a brief spell in New Zealand leaves little doubt that he was the
author of both. He was not above re-cutting his own ashlar.
You should get this but I have a nasty feeling I have not got the mailbase
protocol right!
>From Roger Ayers,
Membership Secretary, The Kipling Society.
from Jeffery Lewins
Magdalene College &
Engineering Department
Cambridge
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