KIM

1901. [in 1901 dust jacket] London: Macmillan and Co., 1901. 2 pp undated ads. Original red cloth with Ganesha device in gilt, with dust jacket.

First English Edition of the book that "is acknowledged as Kipling's masterpiece in fiction... The novel is the finest written about the India of the British Empire" [CGEL]. It follows the adventures of an orphan son of a British soldier who is raised by an Indian woman, becomes a disciple to a Lama, and ultimately becomes an undercover agent as well. The illustrations are by John Lockwood Kipling, the author's father. The American edition is considered to have been published earlier (though in the same month as the English one). As with most of Kipling's British editions published by Macmillan, the binding is red cloth with in gilt the "Ganesha" device -- an elephant's head with a swastika (the latter had been a ubiquitous symbol in India for millennia; its use ceased in the early 1930s, when events in Germany gave the symbol a whole new meaning). This volume is in bright, just-about-fine condition (just a touch of wear at the head of the spine). Included is the quite scarce 1901 dust jacket, in its first state (listing on the rear panel 14 titles in the Uniform Edition, with THE NAULAHKA at the bottom and with KIM at the top with no statement of print number). The jacket is in good-to-very good condition (spine quite darkened so as to be illegible, wear particularly at the ends of the jacket's spine). Richards A174; Stewart 254; Livingston 250. One of the books selected as a "Modern Library 100" for the 20th Century, seldom seen in jacket.