ABAFT THE FUNNEL

1909. KIPLING, Rudyard. ABAFT THE FUNNEL. New York: B. W. Dodge & Company, 1909. First (American) unauthorized edition. viii,360 pp. Octavo. In a striking publisher's binding of dark blue cloth decorated on the spine and upper board with a wraparound seascape design, showing a ship upon the sea below layers of clouds, with the title and author's name in bright gilt. This is a near-fine copy, being clean and crisp overall, but skewed at spine, and with a touch of shelfwear to cloth. This is a pirated edition containing thirty stories, letters, and articles, (truncated) and one poem, of which twenty-two of the stories and the poem had previously appeared in Turn-overs. The individual pieces were written during Kipling's journey in 1889 from India to England and were first printed in periodicals (The Civil & Military Gazette, The Week's News, and The Pioneer) between 1888-90. To combat the sale of this unauthorized edition, Kipling instructed Doubleday, Page & Co. to issue a volume containing the same material at a reduced price. (Stewart 324, Livingston 328). (Inventory #: 72287)