FIRST EDITION THUS. Cloth-bound; hardcover; quarto (29.5 x 22.5 x 5 cm); pp. xiv, 274. English text, with colour frontispiece and 31 plates, all captioned; 2 pp. publisher advertisements at end. Beautifully bound in publisher's original red cloth; spine and front cover lettered and decorated in gilt; red dyed page edges; half title. Condition: NEAR FINE. Collated complete. Binding tight, secure, and square. Trivial bumping to spine ends. Covers and contents very well-preserved. Some light browning to the endpapers. Previous ownership details neatly inked to front endpaper. Scarce thus.
Notes: A wonderful copy of the first Warwick Goble illustrated edition. Inspired by the philological investigations of the brothers Grimm, Lal Behari Day, a reverend linked to the Free Church of Scotland, gathered these tales from Bengal's expansive oral storytelling tradition, speaking to an elderly Christian woman, brahmins, a barber, and a former servant. Day (1824-1894) dedicated his collection to the Indian Army officer Richard Carnac Temple, a member of the Folk-Lore Society and an assiduous chronicler of Indian folk stories.
