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Early reprint of the First American Edition. Hard cover, 8vo, in caramel brown cloth, the decorative Art Nouveau boards blocked in gold with the cover design by "EMD," (although this version lacks the artist initialed signature to the front board,) Copyright 1896, title page dated 1897. COLLATION: vii, 209 [1] 6pp. undated publisher's catalogue,(beginning with E. Egglestone's " The Beginners of a Nation"). Top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Includes 24 poems plus additional selections from "Barrack-Room Ballards." CONDITION: Very Good Plus. Lacking d/j. Exterior very clean with some minor rubbing to design, tips square, a little crimping head and foot of spine which is minimally darkened, hinges in order. Moderate foxing does affect the endpapers particularly and top margins throughout. **Published around the time of the Bombay-born, British Author's removal from America, where he and his wife and infant daughter had resided for a period of four years in the Dummerston, Vermont family home,"Naulakha." A dispute over money and reputation with his American brother-in-law, Beatty Balestier, led to charges of assault, and the resulting court case was brought to law, during which time the Kiplings escaped Vermont for England, never to return. (New England Historical Society). The snowy seclusion of the Vermont hideaway, however, and the happiness he had found within his growing family there, has been noted as a spur to the Author's output, resulting in the Jungle Books, Captains Courageous and some of this poetry.** Like Joseph Conrad, Kipling's (1865-1936) work critiques the colonial experience, writing about the intersections of the colonizers and the colonized, whose realities are represented as challenging and usually ugly on both sides. This poetry is thought provoking and seems relevant in these times. REFS: See J. Montefiore, "Kipling and the Seven Seas" The Kipling Society, UK.
Ref: POEMEW 9353
$85.00