Kipling Rudyard

1917 · Best.-Nr. 157865 — Garden City New York: Doubleday Page & Company 1917. First US copyright edition of Kipling's series of articles written after a visit to the Italian front during the First World War. The publisher's archives note that 89 89 88 93 and 121 copies of each pamphlet were printed. Complete sets in this condition are rare. In his after-dinner speech at the Kipling Society annual lunch in May 1999 David Alan Richards noted that Kipling's "London literary agent A. P. Watt and his New York publisher Frank N. Doubleday made extensive use of limited printings. to establish copyright in each country". The present pamphlets represent the true first editions. The text would later be collected for the Sussex edition of the author's work. The articles were simultaneously published within The Daily Telegraph in the UK and within The New York Tribune in the US on 6 9 13 16 and 20 June 1917. The sub-titles of the pamphlets comprise: "The Roads of an Army" "Podgora" "A Pass a King and a Mountain" "Only a Few Steps Higher Up" and "The Trentino Front". 5 vols octavo. Original pale yellow wrappers lettered on front covers in light green or black. Housed in a custom red cloth chemise and red morocco-backed slipcase. Very minor ink mark and crease on back cover of volume 1; near-fine and crisp copies. Livingston 415; Stewart 638A-E; Grolier 479; Ballard CLXXI p. 198; Richards A297. hardcover