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𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr
Slime Beast

I cried out, and I cried at last ‘‘ Who are you? ”’ I heard him say ‘‘ I was a carpenter’”’...

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A. H. WHEELER & CO. - INDIAN RAILWAY LIBRARY, A CHECKLIST Mar 2, 2023 13:32:57 GMT

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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Mar 2, 2023 13:32:57 GMT

This was an initiative by Rudyard Kipling to raise funds to return to England.
A series of cheap, disposable booklets for railway passengers to pass their journey time.
The publisher Wheeler had the monopoly on book sales at Indian ralway stations.

Info from here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Railway_Library

No. 1: Soldiers Three: a collection of stories setting forth certain passages in the lives and adventures of Privates Terence Mulvaney, Stanley Ortheris and John Learoyd done into type and edited by Rudyard Kipling., 97 pp: "Reprinted in chief from the Week’s news"

No. 2: The Story of the Gadsbys, 100 pp: "Reprinted in chief from the Week’s news"

No. 3: In Black and White, 108 pp.: "Reprinted in chief from the Week’s news"

No. 4: Under the Deodars, 106 pp.: "Reprinted in chief from the Week’s news"

No. 5: The Phantom 'Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales, 114 pp

archive.org/details/kipling-rudyard-the-phantom-rickshaw-and-other-eerie-tales-a.-h.-wheeler-1890/mode/2up

No. 6: Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories, 104 pp.: "Reprinted in chief from the Week’s news"

No. 7: The Colonel's Crime: A Story of To-day; and, Jim's Wife - Ivan O'Beirne. 1889.

www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Colonel_s_Crime/qEdAAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover

No. 8: The Heart of a Maid - Bernice Grange, pseud. [= Alice Kipling]. 1890.

archive.org/details/heartamaid00goog/mode/2up

No. 9: Closer than a Brother - G. B. Stuart; [and] Two Broken Hearts. 1890.

No. 10: The Subaltern, the Policeman and the Little Girl: An Anglo-Indian Sketch Written in English - Brownlow Fforde. 1890.

No. 11: Doctor Victor: A Sketch - Ivan O'Beirne. 1891.

No. 12: The Trotter: A Poona Mystery - Arthur Brownlow Fforde. 1890.

No. 13: Whiffs: Anglo-Indian and Indian - Lunkah. 1891.

No. 14: The City of Dreadful Night and Other Places (1888)

www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_City_of_Dreadful_Night/oQ4PAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover

No. 15: The Maid and the Idol: A Tangled Story of Poona - Arthur Brownlow Fforde. 1891.

No. 16: Dr. Rollison's Dilemma - L. E. Tiddeman. 1892.

No. 17: Major Craik's Craze - Ivan O'Beirne. 1892.

No. 18: Felix Holt Secundus, and A Tosa Monogatari of Modern Times - James Murdoch. [189-?].

No. 19: Cigarette Papers - S. Levett-Yeats [= Sidney Kilner Levett Yeats]. 1893.

No. 20: The Wooing of Webster. Faustus Junior, Ph. D. The Bear Hunt on Fuji-san. - A. M. [= James Murdoch]

indianculture.gov.in/ebooks/wooing-webster-faustus-junior-phd-bear-hunt-fuji-san

No. 21: The Widow Lamport - S. Levett-Yeats [= Sidney Kilner Levett Yeats]. 1893.

No. 22: A Yoshiwara Episode: Fred Wilson's Fate - James Murdoch

No. 23: A Romance of Bureaucracy - Alpha-Beta. 1893.

No. 24: That Little Owl: A Tale of a Lunatic, a Loafer, and a Lover - Arthur Brownlow Fforde.

No. 25: Bought to Bay - H. D. E. Forbes. 1894.

No. 26: Mr. & Mrs. John Brown at Home - John Brown. 1893.

The One-Eyed Forger, and Other Detective Stories by R. Reid, and Under the Rose by Ivan O'Beirne were announced but probably not published.

Alice Kipling, who wrote No. 8 was the sister of Rudyard Kipling.

scalar.lehigh.edu/kiplings/alice-kipling-trix

More detailed info to follow.

And if e'er you should come down to the village or the town, With the cold rain for your garland, and the wind for your renown, You will stand upon the thresholds with a face of dumb desire, Nor be known by any fire. What would you see in your proud land, Petrarch, If you came back again to Italy, And in the Garden of the Medici Could listen to the nightingale or lark And dream of Laura in the fragrent dark?

𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr
Slime Beast

I cried out, and I cried at last ‘‘ Who are you? ”’ I heard him say ‘‘ I was a carpenter’”’...

Posts: 2,214

A. H. WHEELER & CO. - INDIAN RAILWAY LIBRARY, A CHECKLIST Mar 3, 2023 12:35:48 GMT

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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Mar 3, 2023 12:35:48 GMT

No. 20: The Wooing of Webster. Faustus Junior, Ph. D. The Bear Hunt on Fuji-san. - A. M.

A. M. is James Murdoch.

Murdoch wrote No. 18 and No. 22 in the series too.

And if e'er you should come down to the village or the town, With the cold rain for your garland, and the wind for your renown, You will stand upon the thresholds with a face of dumb desire, Nor be known by any fire. What would you see in your proud land, Petrarch, If you came back again to Italy, And in the Garden of the Medici Could listen to the nightingale or lark And dream of Laura in the fragrent dark?

𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr
Slime Beast

I cried out, and I cried at last ‘‘ Who are you? ”’ I heard him say ‘‘ I was a carpenter’”’...

Posts: 2,214

A. H. WHEELER & CO. - INDIAN RAILWAY LIBRARY, A CHECKLIST Mar 3, 2023 13:58:47 GMT

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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Mar 3, 2023 13:58:47 GMT

No. 14: The City of Dreadful Night and Other Places (1888)

www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/readers-guide/rg_dreadful_intro.htm

"The City of Dreadful Night and Other Sketches was first prepared for publication by A.H. Wheeler & Co. in 1890, but was suppressed by Kipling. In 1891, much of this material was published under the title The City of Dreadful Night and Other Places by A.H. Wheeler in India and together by Wheeler and Sampson Low, Marston & Co. in England as no.XIV in the Indian Railway Library series."

"This series of eight articles, collected in From Sea to Sea Vol. II, reports on Kipling’s explorations in the city of Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1888."

Content:

THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

I. A Real Live City
II The Reflections of a Savage
IV On the Banks of the Hughli
V With the Calcutta Police
VI The City of Dreadful Night
VII Deeper and Deeper Still
VIII Concerning Lucia

AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

I. The Railway Settlement
II. The Mighty Shops
III. At Vulcan's Forge

THE GIRIDIH COAL FIELDS

I. On the Surface
II. In tHe Depths
III. The Peril's of the Pit

THE OPIUM FACTORY

"As to Giridih itself, the last few miles of train bring up the reek of the ‘Black Country.’ Memory depends on smell. A noseless man is devoid of sentiment, just as a noseless woman, in this country, must be devoid of honour. That first breath of the coal should be the breath of the murky, clouded tract between Yeadon and Dale—or Barnsley, rough and hospitable Barnsley—or Dewsbury and Batley and the Derby Canal on a Sunday afternoon when the wheels are still and the young men and maidens walk stolidly in pairs. Unfortunately, it is nothing more than Giridih—seven thousand miles away from Home and blessed with a warm and genial sunshine, soon to turn into something very much worse. The insanity of the place is visible at the station door. A G.B.T. cart once married a bathing-machine, and they called the child tum-tum. You who in flannel and Cawnpore harness drive bamboo-carts about up-country roads, remember that a Giridih tum-tum is painfully pushed by four men, and must be entered crawling on all-fours, head first. So strange are the ways of Bengal!"

And if e'er you should come down to the village or the town, With the cold rain for your garland, and the wind for your renown, You will stand upon the thresholds with a face of dumb desire, Nor be known by any fire. What would you see in your proud land, Petrarch, If you came back again to Italy, And in the Garden of the Medici Could listen to the nightingale or lark And dream of Laura in the fragrent dark?

𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr
Slime Beast

I cried out, and I cried at last ‘‘ Who are you? ”’ I heard him say ‘‘ I was a carpenter’”’...

Posts: 2,214

A. H. WHEELER & CO. - INDIAN RAILWAY LIBRARY, A CHECKLIST Mar 3, 2023 14:40:35 GMT

Quote

Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Mar 3, 2023 14:40:35 GMT

Kipling's prose is rather marvellous.

And if e'er you should come down to the village or the town, With the cold rain for your garland, and the wind for your renown, You will stand upon the thresholds with a face of dumb desire, Nor be known by any fire. What would you see in your proud land, Petrarch, If you came back again to Italy, And in the Garden of the Medici Could listen to the nightingale or lark And dream of Laura in the fragrent dark?