Image of The Old Issue: October 9, 1899 (Outbreak of Boer War)'. First

The Old Issue: October 9, 1899 (Outbreak of Boer War)'. First published in September 1899, a...

IMAGE number: BL3303947
Image title: The Old Issue: October 9, 1899 (Outbreak of Boer War)'. First published in September 1899, a month before the outbreak of the second Boer War, Rudyard Kipling's 'The Old Issue' referred to Magna Carta when attacking Paul Kruger's government in the Transvaal, which had consistently denied political and civic rights to British settlers in the region. Kipling (d. 1936) revised the poem for later collections to emphasise its connection with the Boer War. The poem appears here in Kipling's personal copy of his collected verse from 1919. The title of the poem suggests that the denial of rights by a tyrannical ruler was an 'old issue' that the English had resisted since Magna Carta. When first published, the poem was used to advocate British military intervention in the Transvaal; editions published after the war were justifications of empire which, to Kipling, defended liberty and the rule of law across the globe.
Location: British Library, London, UK

Image description: Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Inclusive Edition, 1885-1918 Author: Kipling, Rudyard / London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1919 Source/Shelfmark: File 506, vol.2, page 77
Photo credit: From the British Library archive / Bridgeman Images
Image keywords: 20th century / event / events / legacy / poems / british library exhibitions / magna carta exhibition / political / liberty / political concept / poetry / political beliefs / poem / magna carta anniversary / british library exhibition / politics

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	Dimension [pixels]	Dimension in 300dpi [mm]	File size [MB]
Large	1948 × 2692 px	165 × 228 mm	6.3 MB
Medium	741 × 1024 px	63 × 87 mm	1.1 MB

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