{"product_id":"departmental-ditties-and-other-verses-rudyard-kipling-the-sixpenny-series","title":"Departmental Ditties and Other Verses, Rudyard Kipling — The Sixpenny Series","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublication\u003c\/b\u003e London, George Newnes, Limited, 1899.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormatting\u003c\/b\u003e 8vo, pp. 126, [ii].\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition Report\u003c\/b\u003e Poor. The original printed paper wrappers are heavily afflicted with significant chipping, creasing, and prominent tearing, including substantial paper loss traversing the lower-left corner of the front panel. The fragile spine covering has entirely perished, exposing the rusted wire-stitch binding, which remains tenuously intact. The internal leaves exhibit expected age-toning and mild marginal brittleness throughout, yet the text block remains generally clean, unmarked, and perfectly legible. A standard contemporary ownership inscription (\"Mrs E Dixon\") is penned to the upper edge of the front wrapper.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCatalogue Note\u003c\/b\u003e This cheaply produced \"Sixpenny Series\" edition of Kipling’s seminal debut poetry collection was issued to capitalise on the author's surging international fame. It features a prominent photographic portrait of Kipling by Elliott \u0026amp; Fry on the front cover.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBound in its original paper wrappers, it serves as a fascinating piece of late-Victorian commercial ephemera, boasting charming full-page period advertisements for Fry's Pure Concentrated Cocoa and Brooke's Monkey Brand Soap. While the text itself is common in various contemporary cloth bindings, surviving copies of this fragile Sixpenny paper edition are genuinely uncommon on the open market in any condition, owing to their inherently ephemeral nature and cheap contemporary production.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA charming, albeit well-worn, late-Victorian survival of Rudyard Kipling’s first collection of poetry. Originally written during his time as a young journalist in British India, these humorous, satirical, and sometimes poignant verses paint a vivid portrait of Anglo-Indian officialdom, bureaucratic absurdity, and the daily lives of the soldiers and civil servants of the British Empire.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Broadhursts Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54813611327827,"sku":"5299","price":30.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0960\/1469\/6787\/files\/20260819_135028.jpg?v=1788251007","url":"https:\/\/broadhurstsbooks.com\/products\/departmental-ditties-and-other-verses-rudyard-kipling-the-sixpenny-series","provider":"Broadhursts Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}