The Jingle Book

By Carolyn Wells

The Jungle Book is a collection of stories by English author Rudyard Kipling. The stories were first published in magazines in 1893–94. The original publications contain illustrations, some by the author's father, John Lockwood Kipling. Kipling was born in India and spent the first six years of his childhood there. After about ten years in England, he went back to India and worked there for about six-and-a-half years. These stories were written when Kipling lived in Naulakha, the home he built in Dummerston, Vermont (just north of Brattleboro), in the United States. There is evidence that the collection of stories was written for his daughter Josephine, who died in 1899 at six years of age by pneumonia; a rare first edition of the book with a poignant handwritten note by the author to his young daughter was discovered at the National Trust's Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire in 2010

• Language: English
• Publisher: anboco
• Release date: Aug 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9783736410459

Carolyn Wells

Carolyn Wells (1862-1942) was an American poet, librarian, and mystery writer. Born in Rahway, New Jersey, Wells began her career as a children’s author with such works as At the Sign of the Sphinx (1896), The Jingle Book (1899), and The Story of Betty (1899). After reading a mystery novel by Anna Katharine Green, Wells began focusing her efforts on the genre and found success with her popular Detective Fleming Stone stories. The Clue (1909), her most critically acclaimed work, cemented her reputation as a leading mystery writer of the early twentieth century. In 1918, Wells married Hadwin Houghton, the heir of the Houghton-Mifflin publishing fortune, and remained throughout her life an avid collector of rare and important poetry volumes.

Book preview

The Tutor

A tutor who tooted the flute

Tried to teach two young tooters to toot.

Said the two to the tutor,

"Is it harder to toot, or

To tutor two tooters to toot?"

THE JINGLE BOOK

BY CAROLYN WELLS

Pictured by OLIVER HERFORD

To Hilda’s Child

CONTENTS

The Jingle Book

A Serious Question

A kitten went a-walking

One morning in July,

And idly fell a-talking

With a great big butterfly.

The kitten’s tone was airy,

The butterfly would scoff;

When there came along a fairy

Who whisked his wings right off.

And then—for it is written

Fairies can do such things—

Upon the startled kitten

She stuck the yellow wings.

The kitten felt a quiver,

She rose into the air,

Then flew down to the river

To view her image there.

With fear her heart was smitten,

And she began to cry,

"Am I a butter-kitten?

Or just a kitten-fly?"

Two Old Kings

Oh! the King of Kanoodledum

And the King of Kanoodledee,

They went to sea

In a jigamaree—

A full-rigged jigamaree.

And one king couldn’t steer,

And the other, no more could he;

So they both upset

And they both got wet,

As wet as wet could be.

And one king couldn’t swim

And the other, he couldn’t, too;

So they had to float,

While their empty boat

Danced away o’er the sea so blue.

Then the King of Kanoodledum

He turned a trifle pale,

And so did he

Of Kanoodledee,

But they saw a passing sail!

And one king screamed like fun

And the other king screeched like mad,

And a boat was lowered

And took them aboard;

And, my! but those kings were glad!

A Day Dream

Polly’s patchwork—oh, dear me!—

Truly is a sight to see.

Rumpled, crumpled, soiled, and frayed—

Will the quilt be ever made?

See the stitches yawning wide—

Can it be that Polly tried?

Some are right and some are wrong,

Some too short and some too long,