I have been in the rare and antiquarian book business for over forty years; my family has been in the rare books business since 1876. Rare books are in my blood.
'Captains Courageous'
London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1897. Item #06549
“The Grand Banks - Where Boys Become Men”
A Classic of the Sea
KIPLING, Rudyard. 'Captains Courageous' A Story of the Grand Banks. With illustrations by I. W. Taber. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1897.
First edition. Small octavo (7 1/4 x 4 3/4 inches; 184 x 121 mm.). viii, 245, [1, blank], [2, advertisements] pp. With twenty-two full-page illustrations by I. W. Taber.
Publisher’s blue cloth, front cover and spine pictorially decorated in gilt, dark gray coated endpapers, all edges gilt. Minimal rubbing to extremities, small bookseller’s description neatly affixed to front paste-down. A touch of very light foxing, otherwise a near fine copy, the notoriously fragile endpapers remarkably fresh and intact.
One of Kipling’s most enduring and widely read novels, Captains Courageous stands apart within his canon as a pure sea story, drawn from his own experiences aboard fishing vessels off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. First published in 1897, it tells the story of Harvey Cheyne, a spoiled American boy transformed by hardship, discipline, and camaraderie after being swept overboard and rescued by a Gloucester fishing schooner.
The novel’s vivid depiction of life at sea - its dangers, routines, and moral code - owes much to Kipling’s gift for observation and his admiration for working seamen. The result is a narrative at once adventurous and deeply humane, often compared to the great maritime traditions of Dana and Melville, but with a distinctly Kiplingesque emphasis on character and duty.
Isaiah West Taber (1830–1912) is a slightly deceptive figure in this context - he was not primarily a book illustrator, but one of the leading American photographers of the late 19th century, based in San Francisco. That explains why the plates in Captains Courageous feel unusually “real”: they are derived from photographic studies, not traditional drawn illustration.
The publisher’s pictorial gilt cloth binding, with its bold maritime design, is particularly attractive and increasingly difficult to find in such well-preserved condition, especially with the delicate coated endpapers intact and the gilt still bright.
A handsome and increasingly scarce first edition of one of the great literary evocations of the sea.
Price: $850.00