Kipling Rudyard

1909 · réf. 700632 — London: Hodder & Stoughton 1909 London: Hodder & Stoughton 1909 First English separate edition. First autograph edition. Number 167 of edition of 500. Signed and numbered by the artist W. Heath Robinson on the verso of an additional leaf placed before the fore-title bound in white vellum lettered in gold and illustrated on the front in dark green and gold. Boards are somewhat strung original case is missing. Printed on heavy untrimmed cream stock thirty tipped-in color illustrations with paper not tissue guards plus B&W drawings on every page. "The Song of the English" was first published in the English Illustrated Magazine May 1893. It was then presented as a collection by The Seven Seas. This edition published by Hodder & Stoughton was produced for the Christmas season in 1909. The poetry collection which includes six subsidiary poems with illustrations in colour and black and white by W Heath Robinson. These are some of Kipling's earliest verses setting out his version of the British Empire and the duties that it imposes on the English people. His definition of 'the English' is wide embracing all of the Anglo-Saxon dominions and probably the United States. The theme underlying this collection is that the English are the Chosen under the Lord as long as they obey the Higher Law a theme he again returned to in "Recessional "1897 and "White Man's Burden" 1898. The illustrator William Heath Robinson 1872 -1944 was born and educated in London. His early career involved illustrating books - among others: Hans Christian Andersen's Danish Fairy Tales and Legends 1897; The Arabian Nights 1899; Tales From Shakespeare 1902 and Twelfth Night 1908 Andersen's Fairy Tales 1913 A Midsummer Night's Dream 1914 Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies 1915 and Walter de la Mare's Peacock Pie 1916. In the course of his work Heath Robinson also wrote and illustrated three children's books The Adventures of Uncle Lubin 1902 Bill the Minder 1912 and Peter Quip in Search of a Friend 1922. Uncle Lubin is regarded as the start of Heath Robinson's career in the depiction of unlikely machines. During the First World War he drew large numbers of cartoons depicting ever-more-unlikely secret weapons being used by the combatants. In England his name became a byword for unlikely contraptions very like Rube Goldberg's name became in the US. By Heath Robinson Illustrator. Edition of 500. Hardcover. Very Good/No Jacket as Published. Illus. by W. Heath Robinson. Thick Crown Quarto. Signed by Illustrator. Edition of 500. Hardcover. Very Good/No Jacket as Published. Illus. by W. Heath Robinson. Hodder & Stoughton hardcover