Current Events & Trends | April 2020 | Rebecca Rego Barry

Superb Jungle Book Illustrations Head to Auction

Coutesy of Doyle

One of sixteen illustrations for the 1903 edition of Kipling's Jungle Book prepared by the brothers Maurice and Edward Detmold.

Next week, a collection of English novelist Rudyard Kipling formed by the late Joan Twigg in conjunction with her husband Oliver Twigg, the proprietor of The Totteridge Rare Book Shop, comes to auction (online) at Doyle in New York. Because of their trade association, the Twiggs assembled a strong collection, many of the items with distinguished provenance and all of which have been off the market for several decades.

Courtesy of Doyle

Among the highlights is a magnificent set of sixteen illustrations inspired by The Jungle Book and prepared by the brothers Maurice and Edward Detmold in 1903, which the auctioneer calls “one of the monuments of British book illustration.” Housed in a publisher’s green cloth portfolio, the complete suite of color plates “in excellent condition” is estimated to reach $1,500-2,500.

Kipling collectors may also wish to take a look at lot 69, J.P. Morgan’s copy of an early Kipling work, Echoes, written with his sister, Alice, and printed in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1884; or at lot 70, another family production, Quartette, The Christmas Annual of the Civil & Military Gazette, also printed in Lahore, 1885.

According to Doyle, the Twiggs' fascination with "American copyright issues” is reflected in several group lots.

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