Just So Stories For Little Children. by Kipling, Rudyard - 1902

London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1902. First edition, first issue of Kipling's classic collection of stories, illustrated with 22 plates designed by Kipling himself. Octavo, original black-and white-stamped pictorial red cloth. Inscribed by Bertram Rota, the owner of the Bodley House bookstore in London, "S.W. Jackson's copy of my boyhood's favorite book. This copy survived fire and water when so many of its fellows were destroyed by Nazi barbarism at Bodley House in October 1940. After being stored nearby, and escaping more bombs, it returned to the resurrected bookshop and now leaves Bodley House to find sanctuary in friendly hands in a luckier land. With all good wishes Bertram Rota, June 6th 1941." Bertram Rota began selling books in 1923 and was essentially the first bookseller to specialize in modern first editions. In 1923, Rota moved operations to the former location of the Bodley Head publishing house on Vigo Street in London where, in spite of sustaining a direct hit during a Nazi blitzkrieg, the bookshop remained for twenty-eight years. In near fine condition with light rubbing. Exceptional with fascinating provenance. Just So Stories has "achieved nursery immortality because a genius has married two of the most tried and trusted favorite media--the fable and the fairy-story" (Muir, 107). "Kipling's own witty black-and-white drawings... together with their extensive and ridiculous captions, are one of the chief delights of the book" (Carpenter & Prichard, 285).