Rare Vintage Rudyard Kipling 3 Volume HC 1912 Swastika Set

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Rare Vintage Rudyard Kipling 3 Volume HC 1912 Swastika Set :
$68.99

Welcome! Up for sale is a rare set of vintage books I found at a booksale--all owned by the same person from 1913. (see photo of name/date written on inside cover).

1.) Soldiers Three: Story of the Gadsbys in Black and White

2.) Life\'s Handicap: Stories of Mine Own People

3.) Under the Deodars: The Phantom of Ricksaw Wee Willie Winkie

They are in prettygood condition considering their age, with some tanning to pages, wobbly spines. Pages are clean, no writing, no torn or missing pages.

They are written by Rudyard Kipling and have a left-facing swastika on the front of all 3 books, as well as printed on the inside page (see photos). I was curious to find out why Kipling had used this symbol to adorn his books & discovered the following at the Kipling Society on line:

\"Kipling\'s own introduction to the swastika as a Hindu good luck symbol certainly came through his father\'s encyclopaedic knowledge of Indian art.\"

\"Once the Nazis had usurped the swastika Kipling ordered that it should no longer adorn his books. Kipling was so disgusted by the Nazis and the sight of their Flag that he removed the swastika, a Hindu symbol of good luck, from his bookbindings. It had been his trademark for nearly forty years but it was now \'defiled beyond redemption\'.\" [This latter quote is footnoted \"K to Bok, 1 Nov. 1935, and to White, 28 Dec 1935.]

I\'m cleaning out mybookshelves this week, so check back often! I love to combine shipping!!

**PayPal only please, within 3 days of end of sale. Thank you.***

Shipping: I\'m sorry, but I do notship to APO\'s, PO boxes, Internationally, or to Alaska or Hawaii.

Thank you for looking! Happy offerding! ***PET-FREE/SMOKE-FREE HOME***

On Aug-22-14 at 06:29:18 PDT, seller added the following information:

Additional information found on the Kipling Society website:

\"The extraordinary feature of the use of the symbol by Kipling\'s publishers was that there was no uniformity in whether the right turn or left turn was used. Edgar Brown\'s article (Kipling Journal July 1929) stated that neither Kipling nor Edward Bok, with whom the author corresponded about the subject, was certain which was propitious and which the harbinger of misfortune.

Subsequently Mrs Miriam Block (KJ January 1930) stated that the point turned to the right was the \"good\" sign and the point to the left the \"evil\". But even this seems not to be definitive for in John Shearman\'s letter (KJ March 1980), he said that, having attended a course of lectures at the University of Tehran, he proposed the opposite. He thus ascribed Hitler\'s hakenkreuz (hooked cross) as - appropriately - being \"evil\".

That both variants are used in Kipling\'s works is undisputed. Frequently on introductory pages the \'left\' is used, although there are even artistic extensions of this, whilst on the \'Ganesha roundel\' there is always a small \'right\' swastika between the elephant\'s forehead and the circle enclosing it.\"