KIPLING. RUDYARD. — IF.

Doubleday, Page and Company. New York. 1910 FIRST SEPARATE EDITION (U. S). Precedes the first U.K separate edition by 4 years. Oblong 8vo. (4.4 x 6.4 inches). 8 double leaves, uncut at the top of the pages. Each double leaf has a dark green rule and dot border, the text printed in black with green initial letters. Half title has "IF" printed in green within an ornamental black panel, the same printed onto the front board, but in red, with the addition of the author's name. This version with the green colour printing is Richards' variant a. The text pages are clean and fresh and have been professionally re-cased into the binding, but without the blank endpapers, otherwise a very good copy in the publishers original light brown paper covered boards; - Richards' binding variant iii (a)- , with a couple of small chips and some rubbing and bumping to the spine, and a little minor marking to the rear board but overall is a very good example. The Publishers note on page 5 appears in four different variants, with priority unknown, and this copy has variant ii. Despite being re-cased this is an attractive and clean, bright copy of this uncommon little book. Published (probably November 1910) very shortly after the Poem first appeared in the book Rewards and Fairies (October 1910), this separate publication was issued to capitalise on the huge, and instant, popularity of what has become Kipling's most enduring work of verse. A poll taken by the BBC in the UK in 2005 voted it as Britain's favourite Poem, polling twice as many votes as the number 2 choice, Lord Tennyson's The Lady of Shallot. Originally written in 1895, IF was inspired by the actions of Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, a British Officer whose forces were defeated by the Boers in 1895, but who was portrayed as a victorious hero by the British press, the poem is a powerful masterclass in maintaining the British stiff upper lip. --- David Alan Richards; Rudyard Kipling. A Bibliography, A244.