Books

First edition in book form. Based on folk tales and legends that Kipling learned during his childhood in India, The Jungle Book was first published in periodicals in 1893-4, before it was printed in book form in 1894. An immediate success on publication, the book was reprinted twice the same year and twice again in 1895. Kipling won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907; he was the first English-language writer, and the youngest ever, to receive the prize. The present book, and its sequel The Second Jungle Book (1895), were loosely adapted into the 1967 and 2016 Disney movies of the same name. Octavo (180 x 118 mm). Finely bound by the Chelsea Bindery in dark blue morocco, spine lettered and decorated gilt, raised bands, single rule to boards gilt, pictorial block to front board gilt, twin rule to turn-ins gilt, dark green endpapers, gilt edges. Illustrated by J. L. Kipling, W. H. Drake, and P. Frenzeny. Light foxing throughout, an excellent copy in a fine binding. Grolier Children's 100, 52.

The Jungle Book is a collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, who is raised in the jungle by wolves. The stories are set in a forest in India; one place mentioned repeatedly is the Seonee Hills, now known as the Seoni District in Madhya Pradesh.