The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-11-04
KIp11NG,s FIRST BOOK.
He Published 1t Himself, Bound in
Brown Paper and Secured with
Red Tape.

Brown Paper and Secured with
Red Tape.
l[Rudyard Kipling in McClure's Maya
zine]
AS there is but one man in charge Of
a. steamer, so there is but one man sin
charge of newspaper, and he is the
editor. My chief taught me this on
an Indian journal, and he further ex-
planned that an order was an order.
He was breaking me into harness. The
path of virtue was very steep, whereas
Ithe writing of verses allowed a GER
tain play to the mind. and unlike the
filing in of reading matter, could be
done as the spirit served. Now. a
sub-editor is not hired to write verses;
he is paid to sub-edit.
| This is a depression, as all of my
verses were digressions from Office
work. They came without invitation,
unmanneredly, in the nature of things:
but they had to come, and the writing
out of them kept me healthy and
amused. To the best of my remem-
| brance no one then discovered their
grievious cynicism or their pessimistio
| tendency, and [ was far too busy and
TOO happy to take thought about these
things.
/
out of the life about me, and they were
| very bad indeed, and the joy of doing
! tnem was payment q thousand times
their worth Bad as they were.
burned twice as many as were pub
| hshed, and of the survivors at least
tWo-thirds were cut down at the last
moment. Nothing can be wholly beau
| tiful that is not useful, and therefore
my verses were made to ease off the
perpetual strife between the manager
| extending his advertisements and my
chief fighting for his reading matter.
They were born to be sacrificed. Rukn-
Din, the foreman of our side, approved
of them immensely, for he was a Mus
linn of culture. He would say: your
per length today You giving more
soon? One-third column just proper.
Always can take on third page
And in this manner, week by week,
my verses came to be printed in the
paper. They had the good fortune TO
last little longer than some others
which were more true to facts and GER
tainly better workmanship. Men in
the army and the civil service and the
railway wrote to me, saying that the
rhymes might be made into book.
Some of them had been sung to the
banjOeS round camp fires and some had
run as far down coast as Rangoon and
Mou1mein and up to Mandalay. A real
book was out of the question. but I
knew that Rukn-Din and the office
plant were at my disposal at a price,
if I did not use the office time. Also,
I had handled in the previous year a
couple of small books OF which I was
part owner and had lost nothing So
there was built a sort of book, a lean,
oblong docket, wire stitched, to imi-
tate a D. o. government envelope.
printed on one side only, bound in
brown paper and secured with red
tape. 1t was addressed to all heads
of departments and all government Of
ficials, and among a pile of papers
would have deceived a clerk of twenty
years service. OF these books" we
made some hundreds and as there was
no necessity for advertising, my pub
lie being to my hand, I took reply post
cards. printed the news Of the birth
of the book on one side, the blank or
der form on the other, and posted them
up and down the empire from Alden to
Singapore and from Quetta to Colom-
DO. There was no trade discount, no
reckoning tWelves as thirteens, no
commission and no credit of any kind
whatever. The money came back in
poor but honest rupees and was trans
ferred from the publisher, the left
hand pocket direct to the author the
a few weeks and the ratio of expenses
to profits, as I remember it, has since
prevented my fnjuring my health by
sympa thizing with the publishers who
talk of their risks and advertisements.
The down-country papers complained
of the form of the thing. The wire
binding tore the pages and the red
tape tore the covers. This was not in
territorial, but heaven helps those who
help themselves. Consequently there
arose a demand for new edition and
this time 1 exchanged the pleasure of
taking in money over the counter for
that of seeing a real publishers i'm
print on the title page. More verses
were taken out and put in and some
of that edition Travelled as far as Hong
Kong on the map. and each edition
grew a little fatter and, at last. the
book came to London with a gilt top
and q stiff back and was advertised in
the publishers poetry department.
But I loved it best when it was a
little brown baby with a pink string
around its stomach: a child's child. fg-
norant that it was afflicted with all
the most modern ailments; and before
people had learned beyond doubt how
its author lay awake of nights in In
dia. plotting and scheming to write
something that should take" with the
English public.