INSCRIBED BY KIPLING
The Jungle Book
Macmillan, 1894.
Second impression, issued just a few of weeks after the first printing in the identical format. Original blue cloth with gilt vignettes to upper cover and spine, gilt borders and titles. All edges gilt. Author's presentation copy, inscribed on the title page to his cousin, "Hugh Poynter from Ruddy. June. 1894". Poynter's juvenile ownership inscription in scarcely visible pencil to the front endpaper, noting it was given by Kipling at his school, and his later ink monogram to verso of frontispiece. Illustrations in black and white by J. Lockwood Kipling, W.H. Drake and P. Frenzeny. A very good copy, bright and tight with just a little wear to the spine ends.
An exceptional presentation copy of the book for which Kipling is most famous and a key work of children's literature. Hugh Edward Poynter, who was 12 at the time of the presentation, was part of the artistic Poynter family and Kipling's cousin of via their respective mothers, who were part of the MacDonald family: Louisa (Stanley Baldwin's mother), Georgina (who married Edward Burne Jones), Alice (Kipling's mother) and Agnes (who married Sir Edward Poynter).
Contemporary presentation copies of The Jungle Book are of the utmost scarcity and practically unheard of in commerce. A survey of institutional holdings and auction records over the last hundred years reveals no other sales of genuine presentation copies, and just three signed copies all of which were solicited. The only other known known authorial presentation copy, is the Wimpole Hall copy (now held by the National Trust), inscribed by Kipling to his daughter on publication.
Hugh Edward Poynter (1882-1968, son of Sir Edward Poynter and Kipling's cousin); by family descent, sold at Sotheby's in 1994.
Stock ID: 46676
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