Just So Stories for Little Children

Issued in 1902 under this title, these children's stories offer comic explanations for how the world took its present form. Kipling tells how the whale got his throat, the camel his hump, the rhinoceros his skin, and the leopard his spots, and how the elephant's child acquired a trunk after a tug-of-war with a crocodile. Later tales turn from beasts to culture: the first written letter, the making of the alphabet, the cat that walks by himself, and the butterfly that stamped. Each piece is a short etiological fable spoken as if to a child at bedtime, full of repeated phrases and mock-solemn names for rivers, deserts, and animals.

Bound in dark red cloth cover printed with a design in black and cream. Grey-brown flecked endleaves. Dark red slipcase.