-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Kipling <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Aug 5, 2018 10:57 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The Limitations of Knowledge

John,

 

Thanks. A most erudite response as one, of course, would have expected.

 

Best wishes.

 

Mike

 

From: John Walker <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 05 August 2018 09:56
To: Mike Kipling <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The Limitations of Knowledge

 

Dear Mike,

 

This is how the research leads us on, as you certainly know so well:

 

List no 3 in the Old Readers' Guide. compiled with reference to Lloyd Chandler's list of 1928, is of first lines. This includes ' The secrets of the Sea are his, the mysteries of Ind, ', and the cross-reference should lead to an entry at 632b, which is missing from my copy (and may well never have been included).

 

Thus we have just Reggie Harbord's dry comment with that first line: '(sometimes attributed to him)'.

 

Monkshood (Monkshood, G.F. and Gamble, G.; Rudyard Kipling: An Attempt at Aprreciation; Geering and Co. 1902) reports that the verse was actually over-headed

 

'Poor Mr Kipling'.

 

Entering this title into the Radcliffe edition of the Guide, on line, leads to an article in KJ 56, for July 1941. I reproduce the key section:

 

Captain Martindell's notes on early critics, for example, include several extracts unknown or forgotten by many of us. He might have mentioned the still earlier and striking summing, up by E. V. Lucas, of the work of the young man, not yet 29—" Poor Mr. Kipling ; or the limitation of knowledge." I have reason to know that these lines gave R. K. great pleasure, though the authorship was not known to him till years later. Kipling had no objection to sound criticism and, as we know, he was his own severest critic.

 

The letter is signed 'A Country K.S. member'.

 

So, subject to the usual academic provisos (did you notice the opening 'So'?) the author was Edward Verrall Lucas, and memories will turn to a poem in The Times in 1918. I see that the Cushing Library (despite previous contacts) still has 'The Old Volunteer' safely stored with press cuttings of Kipling's verse.

 

 

Best regards,

 

John  

  

 

 

Sender notified by Mailtrack 08/05/18, 9:47:38 AM

 

On Sat, Aug 4, 2018 at 11:08 PM Mike Kipling <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Does anyone know whether the poem ‘The Limitations of Knowledge’, printed in both the very first edition of the KJ and repeated in the 75^th anniversary edition (No. 301) is generally accepted to have been by Kipling? In particular, is it included in Pinney’s three volumes (which I must acquire) or any other collections?

 

I ask, as it is actually true that Dr Parker’s wife was a distant relation of Kipling, her mother being a Kipling by birth (read either article to understand). As this link has only been proven in recent years by DNA testing, Dr Parker was almost certainly simply assuming that all Kiplings were related.

 

Dr Parker’s wife was actually my second cousin three times removed.

 

Mike Kipling

 

 

 

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