Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills, 1888, inscribed by author's father

From the Library of Christian Heuer

KIPLING, RUDYARD

Plain Tales from the Hills. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co. and (London:) W. Thacker and Co., 1888

8vo, FIRST EDITION, one of 1,250 copies, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR'S FATHER ON FRONT ENDPAPER IN MONTH AFTER PUBLICATION ("JM Hooper from | J Kipling | April 1888"), page number on p.192 misplaced as in most copies, 24pp. of advertisements dated December 1887 at the end, second issue binding of original coarse checkerboard light olive brown cloth boards, pictorial design in black of hills and plains surrounding title and author (designed by Kipling's father), spine lettered in gilt, preserved in red cloth chemise and full crushed red morocco pull-off box, hinges repaired with residue of glue or other staining on end-leaves, some gatherings nearly loose, some slight browning, covers faded, somewhat worn and bumped at corners

KIPLING'S FIRST BOOK OF PROSE. The author's father, the artist and art school administrator John Lockwood Kipling (1837–1911) had arrived in India with his wife Alice in 1865, taking up a three-year contract to teach ceramics and architectural sculpture at the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy School of Art in Bombay. Their son (Joseph) Rudyard was born in December the same year.

Thirty-nine stories had appeared anonymously in the Civil and Military Gazette from 11 November 1886 to 10 June 1887 under the serial title "Plain Tales from the Hills". Twenty-nine of these are here collected for the first time by Kipling. The dedication is "to the wittiest woman in India", otherwise unidentified but almost certainly Isabella Burton, wife of Major F.C. Burton of the Bengal Lancers. 

LITERATURE:

Richards A10

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