Just So Stories. With 35 Illustrations by the Author. Reprint of the First Edition.

New York: Weathervane Books, (1978). Octavo, black leatherette (hardcover), gilt letters, [vi] + 210 pp. Fine in a Near-Fine dust jacket with lightly sunned spine. From dust jacket: “Once upon a Time O Best Beloved,” and so begins one of the best loved and most respected collections of stories for children, Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories. This edition includes the author’s own unique illustrations. Kipling’s bold linear fantasies, in the style of art nouveau, as well as his attention to realistic detail, create an intriguing and strikingly different interpretation. The first tale, “How the Whale Got Its Throat,” a tall tale of a big whale, sets the tone for these wild “Venturesome adventures,” to use Kipling’s own words. One glance at the table of contents will reveal that the Just So Stories appeal most to inquisitive and fantasy-loving minds. These are stories which tell us of the Timeof Very Beginnings; how, for instance, the camel got its hump, how the elephant got its trunk, or how the alphabet was made. From the “more-than-oriental splendour” of the Parsee’s hat to “the great-grey-green Limpopo river” these stories are spun from Kipling’s travels and adventures in India. Kipling incorporates a host of exotic and bizarre creatures. Have you ever encountered the extraordinary Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, or Slow-and-Solid Tortoise, or Yellow-Dog Dingo, or the Rhinoceros with a horn on his nose, two piggy eyes, and few manners? Written in a jocular and fanciful style, with internal rhymes and lyrical phrases, these Just So Stories demand to be read aloud. Kipling’s tales tell us how “it was so - just so - a little time ago” and not so long ago that we cannot continue to be amused and beguiled by these stories of the “High and Far Off Times” of Rudyard Kipling. (Inventory #: 51728bd)