Kipling RudyardABAA
KIPLING, [Joseph] Rudyard (1865-1936)Biblio.com
Traffics And Discoveries
73577London: Macmillan and Co. Limited 1904. Short Stories / Strange Tales FIRST EDITION first impression. Octavo 21 x 14cm pp.2 vi; 393 23. Publisher's red cloth with gilt titles to spine and gilt elephant motif stamped to upper. Top edge gilt. With the plain typographic dust-jacket various prices affixed to spine. Toning to edges with some spotting to endpapers otherwise internally clean. Jacket toned especially to spine with moderate general wear and chipping to edges and a large loss to front panel. Various publisher's price labels to jacket spine. Rarely seen with the jacket. Very good. A quality collection of short stories including the remarkable 'Mrs. Bathurst' with its theme of destructive power and obsessive love plus the strange tale 'Wireless' which concerns spirit possession as well as the classic ghost story 'They'; an unsettling tale about a lost motorist and his encounter with a blind woman at the isolated 'House Beautiful' being a companion rather than a sequel to the earlier 'Brushwood Boy' fantasy which sees the reappearance of the characters 'Them'. Adept at short fiction Kipling penned many 'uncanny tales' some being subtle fantasies They The Brushwood Boy The Eye of Allah whilst others were more overtly supernatural or scientific romances in the manner of Edgar Allan Poe The Phantom 'Rickshaw The Mark of the Beast The Night Mail. Kipling wrote of new inventions and future wars warned of the social consequences of technological change and exerted an the most lasting influence on modern science fiction and fantasy writing according to leading SF writer Poul Anderson; indeed his stories of India with notions of an earthly alien in a strange world are the most salient predecessors of golden age sci-fi. Kipling later stressed he was 'not diving after physical experiences' although he was exposed to and described uncanny events and was much aware of the irrational premises and feelings of others; his formative professional years were spent in India a country with a widespread belief in ghosts and spirit reincarnation and at a time when matters 'psychic' were fashionable throughout Europe. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1904 unknown
Adrian Harrington Rare Books · Royaume-Uni250,00 £GB≈ 285,45 €
