I couldn’t have written this book without the generous support of many individuals and institutions around the world. Not all of them can be named here but I particularly want to thank Henry Louis Gates Jnr. for keeping a welcome for me in Harvard and David Page, John Radcliffe and John Walker for giving me a home in the Kipling Society.
The staff in the Houghton Library and in Widener, like the keepers of Sussex University’s Kipling Archive, have been unfailingly helpful. I shall always be in debt to Tanya Barben of the University of Cape Town, for sharing her exhaustive knowledge of Kipling’s time in South Africa and to Barbara Fisher, for allowing me access to her own research on Trix Kipling.
I owe the Clink Street Writers’ Group for astute feedback and for the constant friendship that kept me on track as I was writing.
Most of all I am grateful to my husband, Nick Cumpsty, for his backing.
The story I’m telling in Kiping & Trix follows the historical facts very closely. But in bringing it to life, I had to draw on imagination for scenes and conversations and to explore the inner thoughts of my characters. It was because I wanted to make emotional sense of these lives that I chose fiction rather than biography.