First edition, first impression. 150pp, with monochrome plate frontispiece (a delightful cartoon depicting the writer Rudyard Kipling taking a day out on the heath with Britannia). Blue cloth-covered board with silver-stamped lettering on the spine. Cloth very slightly rubbed around edges. Internally neat, clean, bright and tight. In its original printed paper dust jacket, rubbed and faded at edges, a little sunned over spine, residue from label on front panel.
Richard Faber (the son of the founder of the publishing house, Faber and Faber) was a British diplomat and talented writer. In his volume he explores one often neglected aspect of Victorian Britain and the development of the British Empire - the motivations of the men who built it, set in the comparative context of other Empires; includes a chapter on Rudyard Kipling and the imperial messaging in his writing.
