Group of c.80 autograph letters, the majority signed ("John"), some from his wife and others, to members of their family, taking in his early student days, work in London, career in India, and retirement, held in four modern folders, comprising:

i) Twenty-two autograph letters, written from Bombay (13), Lahore (7), Simla (2), from John Lockwood Kipling and his wife Alice, on life in India, the climate ("...We call this the cold weather by courtesy really..."), much on their son Rudyard ("...Ruddy improves in talking every day, and speaks with wonderful distinctness... The little rogue talks in four languages – English – Hindustani, Marathi, and Goanese! I hope he will have a taste for languages... suffering terribly from the heat now like all of us... as cross as a woman on a washing day..."), his work ("...almost frightened sometimes to think how much I have to do... If I had six good English carvers and masons, and a lot of plasterers I could do something... busy designing a big new museum and additions to the School of Art..."), servants ("...Our ayah is a clever imitator of animals and little Alice has quite picked up her menagerie of sounds..."), animals ("...musk rats horrid things like sleek moles... that taint all they touch... gigantic cockroaches... a porcupine in a cage... to furnish me with penholders and brush handles..."), news of the assassination of the Viceroy, Lord Mayo ("...It has thrown a heavy gloom over all society all over the Empire..."), the death of Sir Henry Durand, Lt Governor of Punjab ("...the most conscientious statesman India has possessed..."), the benefits of India to the young ("...offers opportunities that few other countries can... I should like above all things... to let Ruddy have a chance in the Indian civil service... one of the best careers open to brains..."), preparing for a ball ("...three tailors are sitting on the Verandah stitching away at black velvet, gold braid etc... Bombay is very gay just now..."), description of their journey to Lahore ("...hotel here is very poor... no food fit to eat..."), the heat ("...like the breath of an oven after the pies have been taken out..."), meeting with Sir John Strachey, Governor of the N.W. Provinces ("...prospects of a new School of Art in the north..."), the power of the political agent ("...virtually rules a country bigger than Holland..."), growing children ("...Trix has thoroughly enjoyed her first season..."), increasing success of Rudyard ("...six small books now selling well in this country... no doubt of his success as a writer..."), visit of Lord Northbrook ("...dinner... 170 guests costing four thousand pounds..."); with a further 12 from London, Surrey and Yorkshire from them and other correspondents, with family news, and much else, over 150 pages, some incomplete, others fragments, dust-staining, marks, creases, small tears, some insect damage to a few bifolia, mostly 8vo, Bombay, Nassick, Lahore, Simla, Bewdley, London, 13 December 1865 to 30 December 1875

ii) Twelve autograph letters, from Kipling to family members, written prior to leaving for India, the first mentioning urgent work for Mr Pinder ("...At present I dream of strawberry dishes and fluted butter tubs... Rejoice with me, we are going to have a modeller to finish my designs..."), excited that "...The great exhibition is to be – and your humble servant hopes to have a hand therein... Mr Sykes is discovered to be in a dangerous state of lung disease... I am appointed his deputy and viceroy in management...", on his work on the Foreign Office ("...have been employed in carving the greater part of the single figures for the model..."), on the prospect of working in India ("...They are sanguine at Bombay about the success of the natives as carvers..."), on the 1862 exhibition ("...lounging about the Museum... making savage designs for ornament..."), his colleagues, suitable shirts for India, etc., c.74 pages, some fragmentary or incomplete, mostly 8vo, Pimlico, South Kensington, c.1857-1861

iii) Some eighteen letters from Kipling and other family members, including a love letter from his father to his mother, the rest dating from the early years of his career, with mention of his time at Pinder Bourne & Co. and night classes at The Potteries art school, with a small juvenile sketchbook bearing ownership inscription "John Kipling. 1849", c.56 pages, 4to and smaller, Burslem and elsewhere, 1829 and later; another folder with some 20 letters written after his retirement in 1893, the majority from Kipling, some from Alice, to Frances and Lizzie, with family news ("...Rud has just flitted from Rottingdean to a property he has bought in East Sussex, an old house with about 50 acres round it..."), and work ("...I am doing some models for America of Indian subjects..."), c.76 pages, 4to and smaller, Tisbury, 1893 to 1910