Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$37.06 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Dark blue cloth with embossed pattern around gilt lettering on front and gilt lettering on spine. Minimal bumping on corners and spine ends. Some foxing on rough cut page edges and age discolouration of e/p's but otherwise tight and clean. Owner's name on frontispiece page.
Seller: Arty Bees Books, Wellington, New Zealand
Rudyard Kipling. Soldier Tales. Macmillan and Co., Ltd., London, 1896.
Price: US$95.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: 12mo. Pp. viii, 72. Learoyd, Mulvaney, and Ortheris, later featured in Soldiers Three (1899) blunder through Afghanistan, speaking in impenetrable Cockney, Irish, and Yorkshire accents. Blue cloth, with illustrations in gilt to front and spine. A.e.g. 20 full-page illustrations. A beautiful copy. Opens automatically to p. 80, else fine.
Seller: Bryn Mawr Bookstore, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.
Price: US$96.57 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Two smart early printings of the first editions of these works by the popular author Rudyard Kipling. The second printing (first reprint) of the first edition of Soldier Tales, published November 1896, a month after the first edition, and the third printing (second reprint) of the first edition of 'Captains Courageous', published January 1898, three months after the first edition. Both bound in the publisher's original cloth bindings, with pictorial gilt to the front boards. All edges gilt. Illustrated to Soldier Tales with a frontispiece and twenty further plates. Illustrated to 'Captains Courageous' with a frontispiece and twenty-one plates. Collated, complete. Two works from the popular author Rudyard Kipling, a prolific writer of poems, novels, and short stories, best known for his novel 'The Jungle Book'. Soldier Tales consists of seven short stories, including With the Main Guard, The Drums of the Fore and Aft, The Man Who Was, The Courting of Dinah Shadd, and The Madness of Private Ortheris. Illustrated throughout by the Scottish painter A. S. Hartrick (1864-1950). Captains Courageous: A Story of the Grand Banks is a novel which follows the adventures of Harvey Cheyne Jr., the spoiled son of a railroad tycoon, after he is saved from drowning by a Portuguese fisherman in the north Atlantic. Illustrated throughout by I. W. Taber (1830-1912). This novel originally appeared as a serialisation in McClure's. In the publisher's original cloth bindings. Externally fairly smart, with some fading to the spines, and light shelf wear to the extremities and head and tail of the spines. Spines are a little slanted. Front hinge to Soldier Tales is slightly strained but is held firmly. Internally, firmly bound. To Soldier Tales, pages are bright and clean, apart from the odd spot to the first and last few pages. To 'Captains Courageous', pages are bright but spotted throughout. Very Good
Seller: Rooke Books PBFA, Bath, United Kingdom
KIPLING, RUDYARD. SOLDIER TALES. Macmillan and Co, London and New York, 1896.
Price: US$104.00 + shipping
Description: 190 x 122 mm. (7 1/2 x 4 3/4"). viii, 172 pp., with the half title. Publisher's blue cloth with gilt pictorial design on upper cover and on flat spine, all edges gilt. Vignette headpieces and tailpieces, frontispiece and 20 plates by A. S. Hartrick. Verso of front free endpaper with ink owner's inscription of Constance Reynolds dated 14 February 1898. Stewart 157. âSpine a bit cocked and faded, with a little fraying at tail edge, extremities lightly rubbed, a couple of small stains to upper cover, text slightly open at gutter at gathering D, occasional mild marginal foxing or faint fore-edge dampstain to plates (not affecting image), but a very good copy, clean and fresh with nothing approaching a fatal defect. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) is most famous for his works portraying the lives of both natives and colonialists on the Indian subcontinent. An opponent of female suffrage and a staunch supporter of British imperialism, Kipling nonetheless had great sympathy for the traditions of India as well as the literary ability and desire to present it as a land of beauty and enchantment. He was born in Bombay, where his father ran a school of art, and he lived in India until the age of six. He was sent to school in England, but chose to return to the East at 18. His father had become director of the Lahore Museum in what is now Pakistan, and Rudyard became a journalist for the "Lahore Civil and Military Gazette." His first two collections of stories, "Plain Tales from the Hills" and "Soldiers Three," depict the lives of the British military in India; he proved to be a prolific author, writing novels, tales for children and adults, and many poems. Kipling's wife was American, and they lived for a time in Vermont, but from 1896 the couple settled in England. Among his many honors are a Nobel Prize (1907) and the Gold Medal of the Royal Society of Literature (1926), which had previously only been awarded to Scott, Meredith, and Hardy.
Seller: Phillip J. Pirages Rare Books (ABAA), McMinnville, OR, U.S.A.
Price: US$154.52 + shipping
Description: 8vo., Second Impression thus, bookplate scar on front paste-down; original blue cloth, upper board blocked in gilt and blind, gilt back, uncut, black endpapers, backstrip very lightly sunned else a remarkably well-preserved bright, clean copy. With 6pp publisher's catalogue bound in at end, and a small printed portrait of the author mounted on front free endpaper verso. For the first Macmillan edition of the previous year the text was revised and two stories - 'Of Those Called' and 'The Wreck of the Visigoth' - added. To Soldiers Three. In this second impression these two tales were omitted and a new story - 'L'Envoi' - added to The Story of the Gadsbys. Scarce, especially in this condition. Livingston 119 (recording the first edition of the previous year).
Seller: Island Books, Thakeham, West Sussex, United Kingdom
Price: US$600.00 + shipping
Description: Octavo, three volumes. In Very Good minus condition. Bound in full navy leather armorial bindings with gilt lettering and ornamentation to spines. Mild shelf wear and soiling to all volumes. All corners bumped and rubbed, and mild wear to all joints. Some wear to crowns and tail of spines. Upper edges of text blocks gilt. Original owner Henry Arthur Johnstone's ex libris in blind tooled leather as front free endpaper for all volumes, and previous owner's bookplate at all front pastedowns. Some age-toning to textblocks. Pages clean. Shelved above Homer/Virgil. 1351210. Shelved Dupont Bookstore.
Seller: Second Story Books, ABAA, Rockville, MD, U.S.A.
Kipling, Rudyard. Soldier Tales - 1st Edition. Macmillan and Co., Limited, London, 1896.
Price: US$5940.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First edition, published on 30 October 1896, at 6s; 5,000 copies were printed. Deep blue cloth boards, lettered and illustrated on spine and illustrated on front board in gold, dark bluish green endpapers. All edges trimmed and gilt. Near Fine condition with lightly rubbed extremities. Richards E1-12, Martindell 67, Livingston 133, Stewart 157. In the rare dust-wrapper, only rather minor chipping to spine ends and corners, little tanned, soiled. Small label to paste-down. Second state wrapper with "The Works of Rudyard Kipling" on back panel rather than rectangular vignette of three Indian deities in temple arch, advertising second printing (tenth thousand) of Soldier Tales; Includes "With the Main Guard", "Drums of the Fore and Aft", "The Man Who Was", "The Courting of Dinah Shadd", "The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney", "The Taking of Lungtungpen", "The Madness of Private Ortheris". As noted in Kiplings contract with Macmillan, this is an "illustrated volume of stories (already published)" in prior English editions ; Crown 8vo; [viii], 172 pages
Seller: Books Tell You Why - ABAA/ILAB, Summerville, SC, U.S.A.