It was a publishing venture of A. H. Wheeler & Co., who "had the monopoly on bookstall sales on Indian railway stations" [1] It was a series of pamphlets intended to catch the interest of railway passengers, and offer cheap "throwaway" reading material.
The series began as a result of an initiative by Rudyard Kipling as he sought to assemble funds to return to England from India in 1888: he approached the senior partner of A. H. Wheeler & Co., Émile Moreau,[2][3] with the proposal to publish his stories in cheap booklet form.
The booklets were to have grey-green card covers, with illustrations by Rudyard's father John Lockwood Kipling.
They were all by Rudyard Kipling, and consisted mainly of reprints of stories that had already appeared in various of the periodicals for which he was already writing in India.
The following volumes were included:[4] By Kipling: Other authors: The One-Eyed Forger, and Other Detective Stories by R. Reid, and Under the Rose by Ivan O'Beirne were announced but probably not published.