A Song of the English (first edition [1909]) and The Five Nations (first edition, 1903)

THE SONG OF THE ENGLISH

Blue cloth-boards with gilt design and lettering on upper board. New matching Skivertex spine with new gilt lettering and rules, new head and tail bands and new patterned plain ivory endpapers. The design and lettering of the title-page are printed in red and black. The text and plate pages are unpaginated but make a total of some 90 leaves printed on heavy cartridge text paper for the text and ivory boards for the illustrations + 30 lighter leaves for illustration protectors and captions. The text is divided into 21 songs in 7 sections, decorated with smaller and larger b/w sketches. There are in addition 30 full-page illustrations in colour, tipped on to boards with printed frames and protected by captioned tissue guards.

The copy is complete with no owner names and no other markings (except for a red crayon line on the verso of one of the plates) and no discolouration except that referred to below. The restored binding is excellent.There is  a small amount of rubbing to the lower board and the corners. There is a crack at the half-title leaf but the successful repair referred to above has restored the binding to its original condition. The 2 front and 3 back leaves are lightly foxed. All the plates are present, with 2 or 3 of them lightly creased.

Overall, this is an excellent example of one of Heath Robinson's better-known illustrated book.

THE FIVE NATIONS

While less than those with India (and, of course, England), Kipling's links with South Africa were strong as well. He was one of the early contributors to The Friend, the Bloemfontein newspaper started by Field Marshal Roberts in 1900 as the mouthpiece for the Imperial forces. There are a good number of Kipling's Anglo-Boer War poems in The Five Nations, of which ours is a first edition - including, General Joubert, Bridge-Guard in he Karroo, South Africa and most of the 16 "Service Songs".

195 x 130 mm. Maroon cloth-boards, plain endpapers, top edge gilt, other pages untrimmed. xv + 215 pp of text + very long (38 pp) section dated July 1903 at the back listing Methuen's general literature and fiction titles.

The boards are rubbed and the spine sunned. There is an owner signature on the front free endpaper, which is sunned and partly loose. The back endpaper is also sunned. The contents are complete and otherwise unmarked and undiscoloured.