Footnotes

'ALL OUR POMP OF YESTERDAY/ IS ONE WITH NINEVEH AND TYRE!/ JUDGE OF THE NATIONS, SPARE US YET/ LEST WE FORGET – LEST WE FORGET!' – the poem that marks the climax of the British Empire, and its imminent decline.

Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, marking the sixtieth anniversary of her reign, took place on 22 June 1897. Her Empire was at that time the largest the world had ever seen and comprised nearly a quarter of the land mass of the earth and a quarter of its population. The celebrations were unprecedented, and Rudyard Kipling, then at the height of his fame, was expected to contribute. Nearly a month went by with nothing being heard from him, and then, in Jan Morris's words, 'Like a slap in the face from an old roistering companion, Henry V turned princely, one morning that festive summer Kipling's poem "Recessional" appeared in The Times. It sounded a sombre, almost a frightened note, a warning against overconfidence, "frantic boast and foolish word". Its sacramental solemnity jarred, and seemed to imply that the Jubilee's celebrations were all tinsel and conceit... Almost nobody else in the kingdom could have expressed such views at such a moment, and commanded such respectful attention: and though the hysteria of the New Imperialism shrilled on its way unabashed, still the publication of "Recessional" was a watershed in the imperial progress – the moment when the true laureate of Empire saw, apparently for the first time, something ugly beneath the canopy... To the end of his life he thought "Recessional" the best poem he ever wrote' (Pax Britannica: The Climax of Empire, 1992 ed., pp.253 & 256). Not the least of the poem's legacies is the use of the phrase 'Lest we forget', taken from Deuteronomy, on war memorials, graves and epitaphs, and at Remembrance Day commemorations.

Two early versions of the poem, and four later fair copies, are recorded by Barbara Rosenbaum, Index of English Literary Manuscripts, iv, pt.2, 1990 (where our manuscript is not recorded; an additional fair copy, dated Christmas 1898, is recorded on the raabcollection website). Kipling and his father watched the great naval review at Spithead on 24 June 1897, and four days later joined his friend Captain Bayly on the Pelorus. He paid another visit the following year, writing both up in A Fleet in Being: Notes of Two Trips with the Channel Squadron (and drawing on his experiences for his Pyecroft stories). Sold with the manuscript is part of a letter by Bayly, sending "a copy of Kipling's poem for last years Jubilee, 'Recessional', which he wrote out for me at Berehaven", and advising them to "put it with other of your carefully stowed away Curios!" The Pelorus is recorded at Berehaven, near the entrance to Bantry Bay, on 3 September (see the Kipling Society's online Carrington Extracts).

Also included in the lot is a sketch by Kipling parodying naval punctiliousness; an autograph letter by Kipling to Bayly, inviting him to stay and praising his "splendid history of adventure"; a large cabinet photograph of Bayly in uniform; and a typed letter signed by Kipling to Major Turner of 10 March 1919, stating that there "were few men I loved better or admired more than the Bayly of the Pelorus". This manuscript was acquired at the sale of the Roy Davids Collection, Part III, 10 April 2013, lot 250, where it is stated as having belonged to a descendent of Bayly's.