THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT and Other Places

1891. [Hugh Walpole's copy] Allahabad: A.H. Wheeler & Co., 1891. 4 pp preliminary plus 9 pp terminal ads, undated (with prices in rupees). Original grey-green pictorial wrappers

First Published Edition (technically the second Indian edition), following the suppressed 1890 edition, which had considerably different contents and of which only six copies are known. This 1891-dated Allahabad edition (printed there) came next, followed by the 1891 edition with joint Allahabad / London imprint (the first English edition, printed in the UK). This was issued as No. XIV in the "Indian Railway Library" -- though Wheeler published this, THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION and LETTERS OF MARQUE without authority, after Kipling had left India for England. As is typical for this volume that is extremely fragile (more delicate than the authorized titles), condition is good-to-very good (-- with about half of the wrapper's spine perished, and with chips at some corners). Livingston says of this edition, "although it is very scarce, copies can be found." Richards A52 (mistakenly showing this edition as undated); Stewart 93; Martindell 42; Livingston 70. Housed in a cloth clamshell case. Provenance: (1) there is an indecipherable signature (with the date 1891) written across the front cover; (2) at the top of the title page is the signature of Hugh Walpole (1884-1941), the English novelist born in New Zealand; he also added his "Brackenburn" leather bookplate to the inside of the front wrapper. The interior of the clamshell case bears the label of W. & G. Foyle Ltd of Charing Cross Road.