Wee Willie Winkie and other stories

First English Edition, 8vo, text block clean, original paper wrapper, spine lightly chipped, slight toning to wrapper, 8vo, Allahabad, A. H. Wheeler, London, Sampson Low, [1888]

A nice copy of a scarce work. Containing the four Kipling stories; Wee Willie Winkie, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Mis Majesty the King and The Drums of the Fore and Aft. The title tale was first published in The Week’s News on the 28th January, 1888 with the other stories appearing in the same year. The collection became Number 6 in his Indian Railway Library series, cheap editions intended to be sold in railroad terminals. Kipling was sub-editor of the Civil and Military Gazette, an Anglophone newspaper reporting from Lahore on the life of the Civil Service and the Indian Army in Punjab. The paper brought out a new weekly supplement, The Week’s News, in 1888 and Kipling was installed as editor. The supplement largely contained a summary of the week’s news but also offered a page of fiction. Kipling filled this page with astonishing energy and enthusiasm, providing week after week the stories that went into the books that made his name with a public beyond India.

The Kipling Society, Martindell 35