Quartette, The Christmas Annual of the Civil & Military Gazette by Four Anglo-Indian Writers

The "Civil and Military Gazette" Press, Lahore, first edition,1885. Edition of 250 copies. Contemporary blind-patterned cloth, (original printed wrappers and advertisement leaves if any not retained*), 8vo,. 125 pp. *David Richards' authoritative bibliography notes that the advertisements present in many though not all copies do not form part of the book. Includes the first appearance of 'The Phantom Rickshaw'. Quartette was sold, on the 19-year old Kipling's initiative, as the 1885 Christmas supplement to the Civil & Military Gazette, the Indian newspaper for which he was then journalist and general provider of material. It includes 16 works - eight in prose and eight poems - by Kipling himself and by his parents and sister, the most notable being Rudyard's "The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes, C.E." and "The Phantom 'Rickshaw". Only 250 copies were printed and Kipling wrote amusingly to his cousin Margaret Burne-Jones about the chaotic circumstances of the production: copies were printed and bound up in the Civil & Military Gazette printing hall on overtime throughout the 'mad night' of 17-18 December 1885, with tots of brandy and plugs of free tobacco from Kipling ('twelve pounds of the hideous mixture of cow dung and dried grass they delight in') to encourage the 'forty odd men besides binders to keep Quartette going' ". Joints showing slight splitting though firm and sound, some wear at spine-ends, front endpapers replaced and with old tape-repair to first endpaper and minor loss to foot of gutter of second, endpapers tanned, textblock Good.