Tag Archives: Rudyard Kipling

It’s exquisite isn’t it, the image. It’s part of an illustration, the original of which is an Indian (Asian) painting. It’s in a book I found in a ‘brocante’ near the house we used to own in northern France. We visited frequently, to browse the secondhand and antiquarian furniture and goods. The book is full of such delightful illustrations. This one pulls out to three times the width of the book, which is a French language version of a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling: ‘Monsieur l’Elephant’. It’s a ‘posh’ limited edition, marketed originally for children.

I wouldn’t have found this book had I not been at the time on a specific quest for books. I wasn’t looking for content however, just books with interesting covers. The idea was to recycle unwanted books into handbags by scooping out the insides (i.e. the texts), adding ‘sides’ of fabric and handles. Like many of my ‘good ideas’, it was doomed to failure of course.

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