POEMS AND BALLADS.
[with dust jacket] Oriental Edition. With original illustrations by Victor A. Searles. New York and Boston: H.M. Caldwell Company, (1899). Original red cloth decorated in gilt, green and blue, with textured dust jacket. "Oriental Edition" of this pirated collection of verses from DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES and from OTHER VERSES -- equipped with eight new copyrighted illustrations. Very similar to Caldwell's INDIAN TALES, this was published in or just after 1899 (the copyright date in the book and on each illustration; there is also a Christmas 1904 owner inscription). The title page reads (in green and red) POEMS AND BALLADS; the binding and the dust jacket read POEMS, BALLADS. Stewart notes a Caldwell title POEMS, BALLADS AND OTHER VERSES [sic] in red decorated cloth, and also a Dodge Publishing Co. title POEMS AND BALLADS "in the Oriental edition with a portrait of Kipling" (which this copy has). It is also noted that Dodge's similarly-bound INDIAN TALES was "printed from the types of the H.M. Caldwell Co.", so it is apparent that Dodge ultimately took over publication of these pirated volumes. Some (later?) copies of this book were issued with the same decoration but on white cloth.
In any event, this is a fine, bright copy of this beautifully-bound book (the design is perhaps intended to mimic an "Oriental" carpet); included is the rough-grained pale green dust jacket (generally faded to light brown), lettered in red, which has a few small chips but is an uncommon survivor of about 125 years. See Stewart pp 605-606 and pp 609-610 ("After the beginning of Kipling's legal action against Fenno & Co. in 1899, the Fenno Types were taken over and used by H.M. Caldwell Co."). Item #15913
Price: $275.00