Kipling Rudyard

1909 · réf. 545 — New York: Doubleday Page & Company 1909. First thus. Hardback. Very Good. Leyendecker Frank X. Xavier; Reuterdahl H. Henry. A fascinating read and with remarkable cover art. Few people know that Rudyard Kipling briefly ventured into writing science fiction. This book With the Night Mail was his first enthusiastic attempt. It is a novella that originally appeared in magazines in 1905 before Doubleday Page and Company published it with some minor changes as a book unto itself-with an absolutely gorgeous gilt and silver cover--in 1909. The story imagines life in the 21st century when transport by airships-later to be called "dirigibles" in real life-was so commonplace that it was regulated by a trans-world agency known as the Aerial Board of Control which was in charge of traffic and rescues. Kipling tells the story of what happens when a postal airship on a typical transatlantic night run to Quebec encounters another airship in trouble and losing altitude just as a storm is whipping up. It's an imaginative story with a creative new vocabulary but Kipling also obviously drew from the familiar. The Aerial Board of Control or the A.B.C. reminiscent of an international coast guard for instance similar to the one regulating shipping around Britain in the early 20th century; meanwhile airships were on the cusp of commercial viability at the time Kipling was writing and were being publicly tested over Paris. But as real as they may have been in 1905 they certainly fed Kipling's imagination. He used them as the jumping-off point for world creation. Besides the text of the story itself Doubleday Page and Company collected other items Kipling created in connection with it--such as the "Aerial Board of Control Bulletin" and fictitious advertisements related to airships similar to those that frequently appeared in the back of books published during this era--and presented them as additional documentation to back up his story. Kipling became so enthralled with his own creation that he wrote a second longer story titled "As Easy as ABC" in 1907 though it was not published until 1912. Both works have been highly influential. Modern readers might be struck by how much they remind them of the steampunk genre close to a hundred years before steampunk became popular. Kipling anticipated a number of technologies in his A.B.C. stories that came into real-life use decades later. As a stylist science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein found Kipling's use of indirect exposition in With the Night Mail very influential on his own work. There is even a series of computer role-playing games based on the A.B.C. Because the texts within this copy were first published in magazines Doubleday Page and Company did not officially label its 1909 release as a "first edition" so we are calling our copy a "First Edition Thus." It is lovingly illustrated with color plates by Frank X. Leyendecker and H. for Henry Reuterdahl. One plate opposite the title page is fronted by a tipped-in sheet of tissue paper; it also has a small closed tear on its fore edge that is limited to the margin and does not affect the image itself in any way. A similar fore edge tear is on an unnumbered page in the back of the book. Page 18 is soiled in its margins and some of that has carried over to the blank facing page. Both front and rear endpapers are illustrated by two-page painting with a production/facsimile signature by Leyendecker. The front flysheet of this illustration has come loose-apparently this is a common problem with this book--but is otherwise undamaged and is included in its appropriate place; someone has written "#50" in ink in small figures on the inside cover. The bottom back inside hinge is starting to tear but otherwise the binding is sound and tight. Pagination for this book is.odd. Only the recto pages are printed and not all of them are numbered. Several sellers have noted what appears to be a cut out page before the half-title page but our examination suggests that it is instead related to the binding process and not a flaw. The book is bound in dark blue cloth with gilt and silver foil lettering and decoration. The covers and spine show light shelf wear and bumping along the edges and corners but otherwise are in quite good condition. The decoration on the front cover is remarkable illustrating an airship floating in the stars and clouds with the title integrated in the picture and the author's name below. The spine has gilt lettering for the title author and publisher's name but also an illustration of people in the gondola of an airship also in gilt. Doubleday, Page & Company unknown