Stalky & Co by KIPLING, Rudyard - 1929

Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc, 1929. Book. Very Good. Hardcover. Later printing (1899). [x], 310pp, poem (Let Us Now Praise Famous Men), In Ambush, Slaves of the Lamp (I), An Unsavory Interlude, The Impressionists, The Moral Reformers, A Little Prep, The Flag of Their Country, The Last Term, Slaves of the Lamp (II). 12mo/18cm. Deluxe edition. Decorated red calf gilt with Kipling's long-term swastike trademark inside a left facing Ganesh roundel on front board, in mylar protector, head of spine worn, light edgewear, previous owner signature "Frances Worldride/March 1930" on maroon ffep, otherwise clean, tight and very good. Gilt still bright--a handsome binding. Originally published in serial form in 1897-98, this is a rollicking story of three untamed teenagers in a 19th century school meant to prepare future officers for the British Army. Beetle, Stalky and Turkey are the three unruly characters at a school at Westward Ho!, Devon patterned after the United Services College which Kipling himself attended and parts of him can be seen in the character of Beetle. Stalky is clearly patterned after Lionel Charles Dunsterville (1865-1946), later a British Major General, made famous by his leadership of the elite "Dunsterforce" moved across Iran in late 1917 to prevent a feared Turko-German attack on India. Turkey is patterned after George Charles Beresford (1865-1938) artist, photographer & antique dealer. In fact direct connections between the fictional characters and the particular lives of the three individuals as students are relatively few. See Livingston 215..