FROM SEA TO SEA. Letters of Travel. [In Two Volumes.]

1899. [in jackets and original case] New York: Doubleday & McClure Company, 1899. Original blind-stamped sea green cloth, with dust jackets and with publisher's printed paperboard slipcase.

First Edition (published eight months before the 1900-dated English edition) of this collection of pieces that had appeared in Indian periodicals prior to 1890. These volumes include the first authorized edition of "American Notes," of "Letters of Marque," of "The City of Dreadful Night" and of "The Smith Administration"; according to Kipling's Preface he was "forced" to issue this title "by the enterprise of various publishers" who were pirating and embellishing his earlier works. The half-title versos bear Kipling's usual icon from India, the swastika -- which until the 1930s signified peace and continuity. This is an amazing set. The two volumes are absolutely fine and bright. Their two dust jackets are likewise fine (a few trifling edge-nicks, but that's all). The reason everything is virtually as-new is that the volumes still reside in the publisher's paperboard slipcase, with printed label on one end -- which slipcase IS edge-worn as one would expect, with some re-gluing along a couple of edges. Certainly the finest set obtainable. Richards A131; Stewart 198.