Kipling-Parker Letters

Draft letters and typescripts of stories which Miss Parker retained from her employment, and drafts or copies of three letters of her own concerning her employment.

Miss K. Elsie Parker was employed by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), author, and his wife Caroline, soon after their return to England in 1900. Presumably in her late teens, she was first employed in the summer of 1901, when they were living at Rottingdean, East Sussex, as assistant to their children's nanny, and in the following year understudying and then taking over from Mrs Kipling's secretary since July 1899, Miss Sara Anderson (1854-1942). She moved with the Kiplings to Bateman's in Burwash, East Sussex, in September 1902, and, except when laid off while her employers wintered in South Africa, continued until October 1904.

Items in the collection may be consulted for the purpose of private study and personal research, within the controlled environment and restrictions of The Keep's Reading Rooms.

Bought at auction at Stride & Son of Chichester, 5 November 1996, with a grant from the Victoria and Albert Purchase Grant Fund and through the generosity of an anonymous donor.

Prepared by John Farrant, July 2002.

An online catalogue is available on The Keep's website .

COPIES FOR PRIVATE STUDY: Subject to copyright, conditions imposed by owners and protecting the documents,digital copies can be made.

PUBLICATION: A reader wishing to publish material in the collection should contact the Head of Special Collections, in writing. The reader is responsible for obtaining permission to publish from the copyright owner.

The National Trust is the owner of the copyright in the works of the Kipling family.

This collection supplements the main collection of the papers of Rudyard Kipling, his parents, his wife and his daughter, which accumulated at Wimpole Hall, near Cambridge and which are deposited at the University of Sussex as SxMs 38, Kipling Papers - Wimpole Archive. The record for that collection includes a list of all the supplementary collections.