Was there aught that I did not share In vigil or toil or ease,-- One joy or woe that I did not know, Dear hearts across the seas?[59] During these years from 1882 to 1889, while he was doing journalistic work and associating with civil and military representatives in Lahore, Bombay, and Mandalay, he was writing stories and verses which appeared in the newspaper columns of India. The first issue in book form was by A. H. Wheeler & Co. of Allahabad, a little book in gray paper covers which was sold at railway stations. In his own hand and with striking illustrations, Kipling edited some of his early tales; one such, “Wee Willie Winkie,” dedicated to his mother, with others that formed “an illustrated set,” found a purchaser in J. Pierpont Morgan, in recent years at a price stated to be $17,000.[60] When Kipling was twenty-five years old, with his memory packed with scenes of adventure and characters in India, and his pockets filled with unpublished tales and verse, he decided to try his literary fate in England. He traveled by way of the Pacific to California and reached New York with hopes of editorial encouragement because he had letters of introduction. He was not received with cordiality; perhaps in later years some of these editors and publishers regretted their lost chance to launch a new genius. In London, he attracted attention slowly but, with influence from family and officials, he won recognition by critics and reading-public. One of the first to appreciate Kipling’s unique work was Andrew Lang; later he was severe in criticism of certain faults. One of his essays upon Kipling of the earlier _Tales_ is included in _Essays in Little_ (Scribner’s, 1891). It has a prophetic note, an emphasis of “the brilliance of colour,” the strange, varied themes, the “perfume of the East.”