Jungle Book, The [Together with:] The Second Jungle Book by KIPLING, Rudyard; KIPLING, J. Lockwood, illustrator

London: Macmillan and Co., 1894. A Superb First Edition Set of "Jungle Books" KIPLING, Rudyard. The Jungle Book. With Illustrations by J.L. Kipling, W.H. Drake, and P. Frenzeny. London: Macmillan and Co., 1894. First edition. Small octavo (7 1/4 x 4 13/16 inches; 184 x 122 mm.). [2, blank], vi, [2, contents], 212 pp. Frontispiece (with tissue guard) and forty-two text illustrations (nineteen full-page). [Together with:] KIPLING, Rudyard. The Second Jungle Book. With Illustrations by J. Lockwood Kipling,C.I.E. London: Macmillan and Co., 1895. First edition. Small octavo (7 5/16 x 4 13/16 inches; 186 x 123 mm.). [2, blank], [6], 238, [2, publisher's advertisements] pp. Thirty-nine text illustrations, including head- and tail-piece vignettes and historiated initials. Each volume in the original bright blue cloth decoratively ruled and pictorially stamped in gilt on front cover and spine and lettered in gilt on spine. All edges gilt. Original dark gray/green coated endpapers. Minimal rubbing to the gilt designs on the front covers, minimal expert and almost invisible repairs to inner hinges. Some light foxing in volume two as is often the case, otherwise a really bright and near fine set. Housed together in a blue cloth clamshell case. The Jungle Book is a "collection of stories by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1894. The Second Jungle Book, published in 1895, contains stories linked by poems. The stories tell mostly of Mowgli, an Indian boy who is raised by wolves from infancy and who learns self-sufficiency and wisdom from the jungle animals. The book describes the social life of the wolf pack and, more fancifully, the justice and natural order of life in the jungle. Among the animals whose tales are related in the work are Akela the wolf; Baloo the brown bear; Shere Khan, the boastful Bengal tiger who is Mowgli's enemy; Kaa the python; Bagheera the panther; and Rikki-tikki-tavi the mongoose" (Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature). Grolier, Kipling, 185 and 197. Livingston 104 and 116. Martindell 61 and 63. Stewart 123 and 132.