signed Hard Cover
1941 · New York
by Kipling, Rudyard
New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc, 1941. Limited Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Good. 0x0x0. Signed by author. Limited edition, #889 of 1010 (only 1000 of which were offered for sale), signed and numbered by Rudyard Kipling on limitation page in first volume. Near fine books in good to very good jackets. Some jackets have tears and minor loss along corners, two have 1 inch chips along the edges, all are toned. Fresh mylar covers have been added to all jackets. Bindings tight and square, pages clean, bright, and unmarked. 1941 Hard Cover. Complete in twenty-eight volumes. Red cloth, gilt titles and decorations, top edges gilt, maroon endpapers with RK monogram. A collection of prose and poetry by Rudyard Kipling, known for his fiction set in British India, his children's books (e.g., The Jungle Book), as well as his verse. Includes: Plain Tales from the Hills; Soldiers Three; Wee Willie Winkie; Life's Handicap; Many Inventions; The Day's Work; Traffics and Discoveries; Debits and Credits, Actions and Reactions; A Diversity of Creatures; Limits and Renewals, Thy Servant a Dog; The Jungle Books; Just So Stories; Puck of Pook's Hill, Rewards and Fairies; Stalky & Co., Land and Sea Tales; The Light That Failed, The Naulahka; Captains Courageous, Kim; From Sea to Sea I; From Sea to Sea II; Letters of Travel 1892-1927; The War, A Fleet in Being; The Irish Guards I; The Irish Guards II; Uncollected Prose; A Book of Words, Souvenirs of France, Something of Myself; Departmental Ditties, Barrack-Room Ballads; The Seven Seas, The Five Nations, The Years Between; Songs from Books, Later Songs from Books; Early Verse, The Muse Among the Motors, Miscellaneous. Kipling was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. Kipling's works of fiction include the Jungle Book duology (The Jungle Book, 1894; The Second Jungle Book, 1895), Kim (1901), the Just So Stories (1902) and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888). His poems include "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If - " (1910). He is seen as an innovator in the art of the short story. Kipling in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was among the United Kingdom's most popular writers. Henry James said "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known." In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, as the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and at 41, its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and several times for a knighthood, but declined both. Following his death in 1936, his ashes were interred at Poets' Corner, part of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey. Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed with the political and social climate of the age. The contrasting views of him continued for much of the 20th century. Literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote: "[Kipling] is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled. But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognised as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with." The collection of Barrack-Room Ballads was issued in March 1892, first published individually for the most part in 1890, and contained his poems "Mandalay" and "Gunga Din".
(Inventory #: 2348081)