“A GENIUS HAS MARRIED THE FABLE AND THE FAIRY-STORY”: FIRST EDITION OF KIPLING’S JUST SO STORIES
KIPLING, Rudyard. Just So Stories for Little Children. London: Macmillan, 1902. Octavo, original black- and white-stamped pictorial red cloth. Housed in a custom clamshell box.
First edition, second issue, of Kipling’s classic collection of stories, illustrated with 22 plates designed by Kipling himself.
Just So Stories has "achieved nursery immortality because a genius has married two of the most tried and trusted favorite media—the fable and the fairy-story" (Muir, 107). "Kipling's own witty black-and-white drawings… together with their extensive and ridiculous captions, are one of the chief delights of the book" (Carpenter & Prichard, 285). This is the second issue, without the easily-flaked white pigment originally used to stamp the spine, here replaced with a more durable white. Without extraordinarily scarce original dust jacket. Livingston 267; Supplement, 144. Richards A181. Faint owner signature.
Slight foxing to endpapers, minor rubbing to cloth. A very nearly fine copy.