Kipling letter admits plagarizing parts of Jungle Book
A letter written by Rudyard Kipling where he admits to plagiarising some of his best known works, including parts of the Jungle Book, is set to be sold.
The signed letter, written in 1895, admits that the writer may have helped himself ‘promiscuously’ to the works of others in his account of the Law of the Jungle, which features in the Jungle Book.
The letter, addressed to an unknown woman, reads: “I have been absent from home for some days. Hence the delay in answering yours of no date, in regard to my account of the Law of the Jungle.
"I am afraid that all that code in its outlines has been manufactured to meet 'the necessities of the case': though a little of it is bodily taken from (Southern) Esquimaux rules for the division of spoils....