REWARDS AND FAIRIES.

Macmillan and Co, Ltd. London. 1910. FIRST EDITION. 8vo.(8.1 x 5.6 inches). Illustrated with four full page mono plates by Frank Craig.


Publishers original burgundy cloth boards. Gilt lettering to the spine. Front board with raised circular Ganesha device in gilt. Top edge gilt. In the rare original dustwrapper, with repeat pattern of Macmillan double M design over the whole surface and red lettering to the spine and both outer panels. Lower panel has correct publisher adverts, as listed in David Alan Richards' Bibliography of Kipling. Inner flaps with repeat Macmillan design but nothing else.


The cloth and gilt are bright and fresh. Some spotting to the fore edge of the pages and a few leaves affected with fairly mild foxing, mostly to the margins and away from the text. The inner hinges are cracked but holding firm and a slight lean to the spine, otherwise a very good copy of the book in a very good dustwrapper with some minor chipping to the extremities and the spine a bit darkened. The red lettering to the spine and panels of the wrapper is unfaded and bright. One small hole to the front panel. A previous owner has strengthened the reverse weak spots with archive paper, but this could be professionally removed if required. A decidedly uncommon survivor in any condition, to find the wrapper lettering unfaded is rarer still. ------ Contains the Poem "If". Kipling's most enduring work of verse. A poll taken by the BBC in the UK in 2005 voted it as Britain's favourite Poem, polling twice as many votes as the number 2 choice, Lord Tennyson's The Lady of Shallot. Originally written in 1895, IF was inspired by the actions of Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, a British Officer whose forces were defeated by the Boers in 1895, but who was portrayed as a victorious hero by the British press, the poem is a powerful masterclass in maintaining the British stiff upper lip. -- Richards A242.