Nineteenth-century page proofs of The Jungle Book, a collection of stories by Rudyard Kipling, have been allocated to the Cambridge University Library.

Page proofs are the final stage of an author’s engagement with a text before it goes to print.

The proofs of Kipling’s book, which was published in 1894, were previously held by the estate of the late Rosemary Watt, who initially received them from the Victorian literary agent A.P. Watt.

They were transferred to Cambridge in line with the government’s Acceptance in Lieu scheme. The scheme allows for those who owe inheritance tax to write it off by donating important cultural, scientific, or historical objects to the nation.

Arts Minister Sir Chris Bryant hailed the text as a family classic, and hopes the proofs “will provide more than the bare necessities for academics, aspiring novelists and self-confessed bookworms.”

Other Kipling material from the Watt estate will join The Jungle Book at Cambridge. This includes further volumes of Kipling proofs, including Rewards and Fairies and Puck of Pook’s Hill.

The Watt collection will expand upon the existing Kipling material in the University Library, such as the corrected autograph manuscript of his celebrated poem ‘If’.

John Wells, the University Library senior archivist, called the Watt Collection “an exceptional accumulation of manuscripts and proofs”.

“While Kipling’s legacy has been scrutinised more closely over recent years, there is little argument about his presence and place in the UK’s literary history,” Wells continued.

Rudyard Kipling’s legacy has undergone revision over the years in light of his sympathetic views on colonialism and British imperialism. His works do however remain popular, with the poem ‘If’ regularly voted as one of the UK’s favourite poems.

Nick Watt, great-great-grandson of A.P. Watt, said: “The Watt family are delighted that the A.P. Watt Collection will now remain in the UK, freely accessible for research into the contribution made by our great-great-grandfather and great-grandfather to the literary world of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.”

The University Library holds many significant items in its collection. Just last month, the Ukrainian Institute passed on a collection of books which had survived a Russian missile strike on the city of Kharkiv.