Departmental Ditties and Other Verses.

KIPLING, Rudyard.

Item Number: 120438

London: W. Thacker & Co, 1897.

Rare Edition de Luxe of Kipling’s first collection of verse. Octavo, original publisher’s half vellum over green cloth-covered boards with gilt titles to the spine and gilt vignette to the front panel. Tissue-guarded illustrations by Dudley Cleaver including frontispiece. One of one hundred and fifty numbered copies of the Edition de Luxe printed with two extra illustrations, this is number 87. Ninth edition. In very good condition.

Kipling published his first collection of verse, Departmental Ditties, in 1886, a year that also brought a change to the editors at the Civil and Military Gazette which allowed him more creative freedom and the ability to contribute short stories to the newspaper. Departmental Ditties includes Delilah, The Legend of the Foreign Office, The Story of Uriah, The Betrothed, The Moon of Other Days, and The Fall of Jock Gillespie.