1897 Rare 1stED - Captains Courageous, Story of the Grand Banks by R. Kipling
Author: Rudyard Kipling. Illustrated by Isaac Walton Taber.
Title: CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS. A Story of the Grand Banks. Illustrated by I.W. Taber.
Publisher: London, Macmillan and Co., Limited. 1897. First UK edition, first printing.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 7.5 " X 5 ".
Pages: viii-245 pages + publisher's ads.
Binding: Attractive and very good, near fine original publisher’s blue cloth binding, gilt-lettered on the spine and front cover, with an elaborate gilt pictorial scene depicting fishermen at sea. Decorative gilt borders to upper and lower boards. (hinges fine, overall slightly scuffed - as shown) under a protective, removable mylar cover. All edges gilt. An exceptionally attractive copy in original cloth.
Content: Very good content (bright, tight, and clean, rare light foxing and toning - as shown, a contemporary ownership inscription dated 1898 is present on the half-title - as shown).
Illustrations: Complete with all the full-page illustrations by I. W. Taber. The illustrations vividly capture maritime life on the Grand Banks, with dramatic seascapes, ships, and fishing scenes integral to the narrative.
The book: Attractive First Edition of Captains Courageous: A Story of the Grand Banks -- an 1897 novel by Rudyard Kipling that follows the adventures of fifteen-year-old Harvey Cheyne Jr., the spoiled son of a railroad tycoon, after he is saved from drowning by a Portuguese fisherman in the north Atlantic. The novel originally appeared as a serialization in McClure's, beginning with the November 1896 edition, with the last installment appearing in May 1897. In that year, it was then published in its entirety as a novel, first in the United States by Doubleday, and a month later in the United Kingdom by Macmillan. It is Kipling's only novel set entirely in North America. In 1900, Teddy Roosevelt extolled the book in his essay "What We Can Expect of the American Boy," praising Kipling for describing "in the liveliest way just what a boy should be and do."
The author: Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work.
The illustrator: Isaac Walton Taber (c. 1857 – February 12, 1933) was an American illustrator active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was also known as "Walton Taber." As his work was often credited to "I. W. Taber," he has been confused with the photographer Isaiah West Taber (1830-1912). Taber's illustrations were published in magazines, including St. Nicholas and Century. Tabor illustrated Rudyard Kipling's Captains Courageous, Frank T. Bullen's Cruise of the Cachalot, and the 1928 edition of Herman Melville's Moby Dick.