The Fringes of the Fleet.

Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company,, 1915. First US copyright edition of Kipling's articles describing the activities of smaller units of the Navy employed at its "fringes", comprising submarines, destroyers, and other auxiliary vessels. The text of each pamphlet commences with a poem. The publisher's archives note that 75 copies of each pamphlet were printed. Complete sets in this condition are rare. In his after-dinner speech at the Kipling Society annual lunch in May 1999, David Alan Richards noted that Kipling's "London literary agent A. P. Watt and his New York publisher Frank N. Doubleday made extensive use of limited printings... to establish copyright in each country". The present pamphlets represent the true first editions and pre-date the first UK edition and US trade editions. The articles were later published within The Daily Telegraph in the UK, and the Hearst newspapers in the US on 20, 23, 25, 27, 30 November, and 2 December 1915. The sub-titles of the pamphlets comprise: "The Auxiliary Fleet", "Submarines", and "Patrols" (two volumes each). Six volumes, octavo. Original pale yellow wrappers, lettered on front covers in light green. Housed in a custom red cloth chemise and red morocco-backed slipcase. Occasional light dust-soiling to wrappers, minor tear to front cover of volume 6, else near-fine and crisp copies. Martindell 142; Livingston 399 and Supp. p. 164; Stewart 394; Grolier 458; Ballard CLXII; Richards A282.