"AN HONORABLE PLACE IN ANY LIBRARY OF CHILDREN'S BOOKS": FIRST EDITIONS OF KIPLING'S JUNGLE BOOKS, HANDSOMELY BOUND

KIPLING, Rudyard. The Jungle Book. WITH: The Second Jungle Book. London and New York: Macmillan, 1894-95. Two volumes. Octavo, modern full blue morocco gilt with gilt vignettes of Shere Khan and Baloo on the covers and spines, raised bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt; original cloth covers and spines bound in at rear of each volume. $6000.

First editions of Kipling's classic Jungle Books, "replete with adventure and excitement," handsomely bound in full morocco-gilt by Bayntun-Riviere with gilt vignettes of Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear stamped on the covers and spines, with original cloth covers and spines bound in.

"Among the 15 stories in [these volumes] are some of Kipling's most memorable narratives" (Abraham, 36). "The child who has never run with Mowgli's wolf pack, or stood with Parnesius and Pertinax to defend the Northern Wall… has missed something that he will not get from any other writer" (Carpenter & Prichard, 297). Illustrated largely by W. H. Drake and Kipling's father, J. Lockwood Kipling, "this most desirable pair… will always fill an honorable place in any library of children's books" (Quayle 87). "Of the seven stories and seven poems comprising The Jungle Book, only the stories had previously appeared in periodicals (in 1893 and 1894), and when collected here, each story had an additional verse heading appended." First edition of Jungle Book containing the imprint "R. & R. Clark" that appears in the "first copies… [of] the first print run… in later printings it is 'R. & R. Clark Ltd." (Richards A76); with numerous in-text and 20 full-page illustrations including frontispiece. First English edition of Second Jungle Book issued only three days after the American edition, containing numerous in-text illustrations, decorative initials and head- and tailpieces: with first edition imprint "R. & R. Clark, Limited" (238), rear advertisement leaf. Livingston 104, 116.

A handsome set in fine condition.