Title: Just So Stories For Little Children. With ...
Publisher: London: Macmillan and Co., Limited
Publication Date: 1902
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Edition: 1st
First edition, first impression. [6], 249, [2] printed pages. With 22 full-page illustrations by the author. Neat inscription in ink on front free endpaper, dated 1902 "Charles Foullet from Mrs. Bell". Very few miniscule specks of browning on endpapers. 18.5 x 24 cm. In the first issue binding. Large 8vo., original red decorated cloth, lettered in white. The Chinese white pigment used for the decorative blocking on the first issue binding famously tended to flake off and a new ink was used for the second issue. The spine has lost its pigment and the front cover has lost some of it as well; the back cover has fared best of all, remarkably retaining most of its pigment. The cloth corners and edges are in a comparatively fine state of preservation without notable flaws. Complete with hand made red Solander box- label with gilt lettering on the spine. A VERY GOOD COPY OF THE AUTHOR'S PERENNIALLY POPULAR COLLECTION OF TALES. The book was published simultaneously by Macmillan in London and The Century Co. in New York. This is Kipling's famous collection of 12 stories and 12 poems including "How the Camel Got His Hump", "How the Leopard Got His Spots", "How the Rhinoceros got his Skin" & "The Elephant's Child". It was the only one of Kipling's books that the author himself illustrated and, next to The Jungle Books, Just So Stories is the Nobel Prize Winner's best known work. The work originated from stories told to Kipling's eldest child Josephine; visits to South Africa & America produced the first written tales but in 1899 Josephine died. Most of the writing was finished during a holiday to Scotland when Kipling was in shock and grieving from his girl's death. When several of the stories were first serialized in The Ladies' Home Journal, between 1897 and 1902, they contained different pictures by Frank Ver Beck. The accompanying poems, and one story ("How the Alphabet was Made") appear here for the first time. Grolier Club, One Hundred Books Famous in Children's Literature, 57. Richards A181; Stewart 260. Bookseller Inventory # 4354