1907 Collected Verse of Rudyard Kipling

Description

First Edition, Original Binding, Publishers' Original Binding, Signed

Bound in the publisher's original burgundy cloth. 

An extremely scarce-to-see copy of this collection of Rudyard Kipling's poetry, with annotations and edits by the author throughout. This work was originally published in October 1907. 

From the library of A. P. Watt & A. S. Watt of A. P. Watt and Son, literary agent of Rudyard Kipling.

Throughout this copy of collected verse, Kipling reworked the order, layout, contents and the occasional wording of the poems. Some of the changes to wording, such as substituting "hansoms" for "traffic" in the final verse of 'The Broken Men', made the final version of the poem, however others, such as changing the name "Mary Pollock" to "Margaret Pollock" in 'The Derelict', did not, showing Kipling's thought process in his editing. 

Annotations include:

A line through the publisher on the title page.

A line through the page opposite the title page, entitled ‘Other Books by Rudyard Kipling’.

The third verse of ‘The Fires’ has been removed (xi). 

Punctuation amendments to most pages, substituting comas, exclamation marks and semi-colons.

The occasional change to the wording used, such as alternating “hansoms” for “traffic” in the final verse of ‘The Broken Men’.

On page 85 Kipling has written ‘To printer smaller type for all these sub-heads of song of the English R. K.’

‘The Sacrifice of Er-hets’ has a vertical line through it (p168).

‘Service Songs’ has been crossed out (p190).

The second verse of ‘The Gift of the Sea’ has been crossed out (p248).

Pencil annotation, not in Kipling's hand to p1, with ‘Dedication from “Barrack Room Ballads”’ crossed out.

On page 8, ‘Song of the Wise Children’ is directed ‘To follow Sestina of the Tramps Royal’, with similar directions given to ‘Buddha at Kamakura’ (p10), ‘The Broken Man’ (p13), ‘The “Mary Gloster”’ (p45), ‘South Africa’ (p118), ‘Dirge of Dead Sisters’ (p126), ‘Cleared’ (p132), ‘General Joubert’ (p145), ‘Before a Midnight Breaks in Storm’ (p193), ‘The Lesson’ (p200), ‘Rimmon’ (p210), ‘The Three-Decker’ (p220), ‘The Rhyme of the Three Captains’ (p222), ‘The Conundrum of the Workshops’ (p227), ‘Evarra and his Gods’ (p229), ‘In the Neolithic Age’ (p231), ‘The Story of Ung’ (p233), ‘The Fires’ (p236), ‘The Legends of Evil’ (p238), ‘Tomlinson’ (p241), ‘The Explanation’ (p246), ‘The Answer’ (p247), ‘The Gift of the Sea’ (p248), ‘The King’ (p250) and ‘The Last Rhyme of True Thomas’ (p252).