With Number Three, Surgical & Medical, and New Poems. Also Letters from Julian Ralph, Charles E. Hands and Douglas Story.

£350 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

A Chilean pirate edition, constituting the first edition in book form of two newspaper sketches and seven poems by Kipling. “It has been said that this is the only case on record of a first edition of a book being published in a country never visited by the author, and where people did not speak his language. … According to a Kipling Society correspondent (Kipling Journal, September 1935), publisher Hume, proprietor of Santiago’s chief bookstore and an ardent Kipling admirer, printed this book “from patriotic motives”; few copies were sold, and in about 1906 in a shelf-clearing move, the balance burnt. Alternatively, according to Livingston and Stewart, the remaining copies were pulped at a paper mill in 1911” (Richards). Despite this romantic imprint and narrative, the book’s not all that rare - Richards locates nearly two dozen copies. It is however, the true first edition. The Esher copy, in the usual linen chemise with Olliver Brett’s bookplate, in near fine condition. Richards A166.

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.