# Is "Departmental Ditties and Other Verses" by Rudyard Kipling a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Departmental Ditties and Other Verses by Rudyard Kipling (Civil and Military Gazette Press, Lahore, 1886) is identified by: Kipling's first separately published book. The 1886 Lahore envelope-format issue is the true first.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Kipling's first separately published book
- The true first is the Lahore issue printed in narrow octavo and bound in printed light-brown wrappers made to imitate an official Indian Civil Service envelope, with an overlapping flap bearing a seal device, the leaves stapled as issued and a ribbon passed through a slit in the flap
- Imprint of the Civil and Military Gazette Press
- The edition was small (about 500 copies), making the wrapper issue extremely scarce
- Publisher imprint reads Civil and Military Gazette Press, Lahore
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Rudyard Kipling |
| Publisher | Civil and Military Gazette Press, Lahore |
| Year | 1886 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Kipling's first separately published book |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
Kipling's first separately published book. The true first is the Lahore issue printed in narrow octavo and bound in printed light-brown wrappers made to imitate an official Indian Civil Service envelope, with an overlapping flap bearing a seal device, the leaves stapled as issued and a ribbon passed through a slit in the flap. Imprint of the Civil and Military Gazette Press. The edition was small (about 500 copies), making the wrapper issue extremely scarce.

## Is this the true first?
The 1886 Lahore envelope-format issue is the true first. Later enlarged editions (the second edition printed at Calcutta later in 1886, then the London editions) are secondary and were reset and expanded.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Later enlarged Calcutta and London editions are not the Lahore envelope-format first; they are reset and add poems.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Departmental Ditties and Other Verses* by Rudyard Kipling a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/departmental-ditties-and-other-verses
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.