“The Seven Seas,” 1897, by Rudyard Kipling, 2nd edition. Gorgeous hardcover decorative edition with a gold gilt design and lettering on cover board and spine. Ink/marker/pencil inscriptions are present, as well as an ex libris emblem, corner bumps due to shelf wear, foxing due to age, and wear to cover board and spine with some markings. Please see photos for condition.
Rudyard Kipling (December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work.
Kipling in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was among the United Kingdom's most popular writers. Henry James said, "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine buy intelligence, that I have ever known." In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, as the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and at 41, its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and several times for a knighthood, but declined both. Following his death in 1936, his ashes were interred at Poets' Corner, part of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey.
Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed with the political and social climate of the age. The contrasting views of him continued for much of the 20th century. Literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote, “[Kipling] is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled. But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognized as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with.”
Product code: 1897 The Seven Seas Rudyard Kipling Rare buy Antique Book Late 1800s