A Dealer Wholesale Lot with Bibliography

Kipling, Rudyard

The Gipsy Trail [The Gypsy Trail] - WHOLESALE or TEACHING group of seven unopened copies PLUS Kipling bibliography

Boston: Arthur Bartlett ( 1909 ). Third Edition. 8 leaves plus blank endpapers. 4 x 6 1/2 inches. Thin white cardstock covered with green laid paper "dust jacket" with letterpress title "The Gipsy Trail by Rudyard Kipling". Leaf 1: half-title; Leaf 2: frontispiece; Leaf 3: title page/copyright page;  Leaves 4, 5, 6,7 with poem on pages 5-[11]; Page [12] is blank, the last leaf is blank. Unopened examples with only a touch of wear, noting that the white cardstock is mottled from moisture exposure (no mold or other indications inside or out). Tacking glue used to tip the "dust jacket" to the cardstock is brittle. We are offering a total of SEVEN COPIES all in essentially the same condition, all unopened. Several of the green "dust jackets" have a watermark "FABRIANO" on one flap.

PROVENANCE: We purchased ten copies of this book in 2006 from a dealer who had purchased the remnants of the Cornhill Press printing archive many years before. They appear uncirculated, kept by the printer. The dealer originally had "about 50 copies" most sold by 2006 when we purchased the remainder. Lost in backstock for years, now rediscovered and offered here.

SUPPLIED WITH: A set of Livingston's Bibliography of Rudyard Kipling (with addendum), 8vo cloth, very good copies. Near Fine / Near Fine. Boards. [28220]


A pirated edition printed at the Cornhill Press with the text following that of the second edition. The poem was originally published in The Century Magazine, Dec. 1890, and wasn't collected by Kipling until 1919 in Inclusive Verse. Bartlett copyrighted the frontispiece and ornament on the title page (by W. A. D[wiggins]) but was legally pursued by Kipling, forcing in 1919 an admission by Bartlett (recorded in the Library of Congress) of no rights in the poem, and Bartlett agreeing to turn over any remaining copies to Kipling's American publisher Doubleday Page.

The 1925 George Barr McCutcheon sale noted "Bartlett printed 1000 copies, but owing to copyright complications was obliged to destroy all but 50 or 60 copies." The green-wrappered copy in the Ransom Center (Univ Texas) has a manuscript note signed Dwiggins with the same information.

Literature:
Livingston, A Bibliography of Rudyard Kipling, Burt Franklin, New York: 1968, pp. 279-280 (priority)
Richards, David Alan. "Kipling and the Pirates." The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 96, no. 1 (2002): 59-109 (legal history)
McCutcheon sale catalog, American Art Association, New York, 20-1 April 1925 lot 331

ITEM SOLD