Two paradigms of literary production: the production, circulation and legal status of Rudyard Kipling's Departmental Ditties and Indian Railway Library Texts

Towheed, Shafquat (2008). Two paradigms of literary production: the production, circulation and legal status of Rudyard Kipling's Departmental Ditties and Indian Railway Library Texts. In: Fraser, Robert and Hammond, Mary eds. Books Without Borders, Volume 2: Perspec. Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 125–136.

Abstract

This chapter examines the history of composition and self-publication of Kipling's first book, 'Departmental Ditties'(1886), and compares this particular practice to other Indian provincial small-scale printers in the period. It then describes Kipling's journey from self-publishing to large scale volume publishing in the popular Indian Railway Library series, and provides evidence for why this trajectory to the mass market could only have been sustained by the consumption of Indian readers.

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