Kipling 'edition de luxe' from Macmillan, 1897-1927

G'day

A while ago I picked up a collected works of Rudyard Kipling, published
by Macmillan & Co. between 1897 and 1927. The covers are red cloth with
gilt titles, a pattern of lotus-shoots on the spines, and Kipling's
badge (a roundel with a fylfot and an elephant eating a lotus) on the
cover. The title-pages are inscribed "Edition de Luxe The Writings in
Prose and Verse of Rudyard Kipling" etc., and overleaf there is a
statement that "this edition consists of ten hundred and fifty copies"
(The number of copies is fewer for some of the later volumes.)

The set is in generally good condition: most of the spines are faded,
and there are fox-marks on the pages, but in some of the books the
pages are uncut.

Along with the 33 numbered volumes from Macmillan I got copy of
'Departmental Ditties' very much the same, except that it lacks the
badge on the front cover and is published by W. Thacker & Co. (1898)
instead of by Macmillan. The typography is the same, the binding is the
same except for lacking the badge. I feel sure that there must have
been close co-operation between the two publishers, or that Thacker
must have copied Macmillan.

What is the story of this edition? How many volumes did it run to in
the end? How is the Thacker 'Departmental Ditties' related to it?

"Departmental Ditties" was first published in India in 1886 in "The
Civil and Military Gazette," a newspaper where Kipling worked as a
journalist. "Departmental Ditties" was first published in book form in
1886 by Thacker, Spink & Co. in Calcutta, India. There were at least
ten editions published by Thacker, Spink and Co., including those
published by its London agent, W. Thacker and Co.. The Thacker edition
of "Departmental Ditties" is in no way related to any Macmillan edition
of Kiplings works.

Rudyard Kipling was no stranger to the House of Macmillan, having
appeared in "Macmillan's Magazine, beginning in November, 1889, under
his pseudonym, Yussuf, with "The Ballad of the King's Mercy, followed by
"The Ballad of East and West" and The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney.
According to Charles Morgan's book, "The House of Macmillan," in 1890,
Macmillan published the first English edition of "Plain Tales from the
Hills."

Thacker and Macmillan weren't the only publishers to publish Kipling's
works. Scribner's, Doubleday and Methuen published his works as well.
Scribner's also had an Edition Deluxe, or was it a Deluxe Edition?
There were also uniform editions, pocket editions, service editions, and
special editions such as the Bombay Edition and the edition published by
the Nottingham Society. By far, the most collectible Kipling Edition is
the Sussex Edition, also published by Macmillan. 500 sets of
thirty-five volumes each were to be issued in red leather with special
hand-made paper; however the demand was less than anticipated, and the
remainder of the sets was stored at the binder on St. Martin's Street.
The bindery was bombed twice and all but a few odd volumes were
destroyed. In his book, Charles Morgan remarked that anyone who bought
a leather chair on St. Martin's St. was sitting in what would have been
the binding for the Sussex Kipling.

Kipling is no stranger to me this week. The other day I was pruning my
books and magazines for retail sale on ebay, and came across the May
1896 edition of the "Yale Literary Magazine," which contains the
"Memorabilia Yalencia," better known as "Mulvaney's Regrets." In 1895,
a group of sophomores at Yale started a Kipling Club. Gouverneur
Morris, the novelist, was one of the members, and wrote Kipling inviting
him to the club's first banquet in May, 1896. Kipling was living in
Vermont at the time. Kipling declined in the form of a poem written in
Gaelic, which began "Attind ye lasses at Swate Parnasses." The poem was
first published in the May 1896 edition of the "Yale Literary Magazine."

My story doesn't end there, however. While researching the poem on the
website of the Kipling Society, I discovered that the society had the
title listed as "Memorabilia Valencia" and that the word "at" was
replaced by the word "av" in the first line. The Kipling Society will
correct its title of the poem on its website. As for the first line,
John Walker of the Kipling Society feels that "av," which means "of" in
Gaelic is more appropriate than "at;" but he is checking other
publications of the poem.

Jerry Morris,
Man of Other People's Books




Agemegos)
G'day
A while ago I picked up a collected works of Rudyard Kipling, published
by Macmillan & Co. between 1897 and 1927. The covers are red cloth with
gilt titles, a pattern of lotus-shoots on the spines, and Kipling's
badge (a roundel with a fylfot and an elephant eating a lotus) on the
cover. The title-pages are inscribed "Edition de Luxe The Writings in
Prose and Verse of Rudyard Kipling" etc., and overleaf there is a
statement that "this edition consists of ten hundred and fifty copies"
(The number of copies is fewer for some of the later volumes.)
The set is in generally good condition: most of the spines are faded,
and there are fox-marks on the pages, but in some of the books the pages
are uncut.
Along with the 33 numbered volumes from Macmillan I got copy of
'Departmental Ditties' very much the same, except that it lacks the
badge on the front cover and is published by W. Thacker & Co. (1898)
instead of by Macmillan. The typography is the same, the binding is the
same except for lacking the badge. I feel sure that there must have been
close co-operation between the two publishers, or that Thacker must have
copied Macmillan.
What is the story of this edition? How many volumes did it run to in the
end? How is the Thacker 'Departmental Ditties' related to it?

Moi's Books About Books: http://www.tinyurl.com/hib7
Moi's LIbrary http://www.moislibrary.com My Sentimental Library
http://www.picturetrail.com/mylibrary Florida Bibliophile Society
http://www.floridabibliophilesociety.org

Jerry:

It is very hard to credit that the Thacker 'Departmental Ditties' of
1898 is completely unrelated to the Macmillan 'edition de luxe'. The
red cloth of the binding is the same. The decorative motif on the spine
is the same. The layout of the title-page is the same. Teh print and
layout are the same. The paper is the same. I feel sure that the two
must have been designed by the same typographer and bound in the same
bindery.

"Attind ye lasses at Swate Parnasses." sounds a lot more like Scots
than like Gaelic. It is confusing, because both languages are spoken in
Scotland, but Gaelic is a Celtic language spoken in the north-west,
related to the Gaelic of Ireland, while Scots is a Germanic language
spoken in the south-east, related to English. 'Attind', and 'lasses'
are Scots words, not Gaelic.


Regards

Agemegos wrote:

"Attind ye lasses at Swate Parnasses." sounds a lot more like Scots
than like Gaelic.

It is Scots, not Gaelic. "Av" sounds better to my ear than "at", but
either would make sense. It means, basically, "Listen, you girls of [or
at] sweet Parnassus".

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.org

Agemegos wrote and I snipped:
Jerry:
It is very hard to credit that the Thacker 'Departmental Ditties' of
1898 is completely unrelated to the Macmillan 'edition de luxe'...
.......................................

The author, Rudyard Kipling, may have had something to do with the
similarity of the bindings of the Thacker and Macmillan books, but I
don't believe there was any coordination between the Thacker and
Macmillan houses. Authors have been known to dictate the layout of
their books. Whether Kipling was one of these authors is something you
might want to research.

Agemegos wrote:
"Attind ye lasses at Swate Parnasses." sounds a lot more like Scots than
like Gaelic.
John wrote:
It is Scots, not Gaelic. "Av" sounds better to my ear than "at", but
either would make sense. It means, basically, "Listen, you girls of [or
at] sweet Parnassus".
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.org


I was under the impression that Gaelic was Irish, but there's seems to
be a Scottish Gaelic as well. Anything but English is out of my league.

I agree that "av" sounds better to the ear than "at," but I think the
word "attind," in this instance, could stand for "attend" and not
"listen."

Here's the complete first stanza and you'll see what I mean:

Attind ye lasses at Swate Parnesses
An' wipe me burnin' tears away
For I'm declinin' a chanst av dinin'
Wid the bhoys at Yale on the fourteenth May.

Cheers,
Jerry

(Agemegos)
Jerry:
It is very hard to credit that the Thacker 'Departmental Ditties' of
1898 is completely unrelated to the Macmillan 'edition de luxe'. The red
cloth of the binding is the same. The decorative motif on the spine is
the same. The layout of the title-page is the same. Teh print and layout
are the same. The paper is the same. I feel sure that the two must have
been designed by the same typographer and bound in the same bindery.
"Attind ye lasses at Swate Parnasses." sounds a lot more like Scots than
like Gaelic. It is confusing, because both languages are spoken in
Scotland, but Gaelic is a Celtic language spoken in the north-west,
related to the Gaelic of Ireland, while Scots is a Germanic language
spoken in the south-east, related to English. 'Attind', and 'lasses' are
Scots words, not Gaelic.
Regards

Moi's Books About Books: http://www.tinyurl.com/hib7
Moi's LIbrary http://www.moislibrary.com My Sentimental Library
http://www.picturetrail.com/mylibrary Florida Bibliophile Society
http://www.floridabibliophilesociety.org

Jerry Morris wrote:

I was under the impression that Gaelic was Irish, but there's seems to
be a Scottish Gaelic as well. Anything but English is out of my league.

The Celtic languages divide into two branches, Goidelic (or Gaelic) and
Brythonic. The Goidelic group contains Irish, Scottish and Manx. The
Brythonic group contains Welsh, Breton and Cornish. Manx and Cornish are
dead languages (no native speakers). In general, the Celtic languages
do not look or sound remotely like English (though, of course, they do
have some loan words from English).

Scots is basically a form of English. There are several varieties of
Scots, but the best-known and the best-documented is Lallans
(=lowlands), whose claim to linguistic recognition is backed up the fact
that it has an impressive literature.

I agree that "av" sounds better to the ear than "at," but I think the
word "attind," in this instance, could stand for "attend" and not
"listen."

Here's the complete first stanza and you'll see what I mean:

Attind ye lasses at Swate Parnesses
An' wipe me burnin' tears away
For I'm declinin' a chanst av dinin'
Wid the bhoys at Yale on the fourteenth May.

Yes, I do see what you mean.

I'm working from home and don't have the authoritative Scots dictionary
to hand, but the online version makes it clear that "pay attention"
(i.e., "listen", or "take note")is the commonest sense of the word
"attend" (or "attind") in Scots, and it is only occasionally used in the
sense of "be in attendance" (http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/ - search for
"attend"; it doesn't give the alternative spelling "attind").

On the other hand, if "at" is the correct reading (rather than "av"),
"attend" (as in "be in attendance") becomes more plausible. A search at
the above link shows that "attend at" is quite frequently used for "be
in attendance at".

So (assuming "at" is correct in the first line) I can see four possible
readings:

(1) "Ladies, listen to sweet Parnassus"

(2) "Listen, you ladies [who are] at sweet Parnassus"

(3) "Come, you ladies [who are] at sweet Parnassus"

(4) "Come, you ladies, to sweet Parnassus"

(1) This would work in the context if Parnassus was a metaphor for poesy
or the poetic muse), but I can't find any record of "attend at" being
used to mean "listen to".

(2) There's no reason I can think of why this shouldn't be correct
grammatically, but the context seems a bit off; I'm not sure who the
lasses at Parnassus are, or why they are there.

(3) Again, who are these lasses, and what are they doing at Parnassus?
Where are they being asked to attend?

(4) Perhaps, after all, this is the best reading.

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.org