Departmental Ditties I and other verses: The First Edition of Kipling’s first published work

FIRST EDITION, tall narrow 4to, half red morocco over marbled boards, original light brown printed wrappers that double as an Indian civil service envelope preserved, marbled endpapers, bookplates of William Garth and William Marchbank, Lahore, the Civil and Military Press, 1886.

The First Edition of Kipling's first published work. Previous work was either printed privately, offprints or collaborative books. 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. Thanks to his occupation and his family's social standing he had many opportunities to explore the full range of life in India. He remained keenly observant of the thronging spectacle of native India, which had engaged his interest and affection from earliest childhood. He was quickly filling the journals he worked for with prose sketches and light verse. Kipling began inserting his own poems under the heading of Departmental Ditties into the newspaper, and then produced this edition, made up to look like a bundle of civil service memoranda.

Richards A7; Stewart 8; Livingston 22