The Jungle Book [IN RARE 1890s DUST JACKET]

12mo. AEG. 276 pp. 4 pp. ads. Publisher's presentation blue cloth binding with illustrated dust jacket. The evidence indicates that this jacket and binding are original unused stock from the 1890s. During the 1900-20 period, Macmillan offered four Kipling titles - The Jungle Book, The Second Jungle Book, Captains Courageous, and Soldier Tales - in "special bindings for presentation" in addition to the standard red cloth trade editions. The bindings and jackets used for this special offering match the original bindings and jackets issued on those same four titles in the 1890s, and at the same 6-shillings price on the jacket spines. If Macmillan had been issuing new bindings and jackets to replicate the 1890s style, it probably would not have included Soldier Tales, a very slow seller, in such an offering. Nor were any popular post-1900 titles such as Kim or Puck of Pook's Hill included in this special offering - just the four titles that originally had the ornate blue bindings and illustrated jackets in the 1890s - thus the conclusion that Macmillan was using up leftover bindings and jackets. This copy slightly musty and cocked, usual endpaper offsetting, binding clean and unworn, very good jacket with minor perimeter chips and tears but almost no loss, a few bits of old tape on underside but clean, complete and attractive. Kipling's classic children's story with a rare 1890s jacket, of which only a handful survived on 1890s copies, and with few if any surviving examples recorded on presentation copies - not seen by Richards for his 2010 Kipling bibliography.