Mark Twain

A first English edition copy of A Tramp Abroad.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>London: Chatto &amp; Windus, 1880.</li><li>Please note the image is a representative image of this item and not a photograph of the exact item available for purchase. For exact specifications, please Enquire.</li><li>Please note that availability of this item is subject to change. For details, please Enquire.</li></ul>

A Tramp Abroad

A first edition copy of Mark Twain's novel&nbsp;Roughing It.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>Hartford, Connecticut:&nbsp;American Publishing Company,&nbsp;1872.</li><li>Please note the image is a representative image of this item and not a photograph of the exact item available for purchase. For exact specifications, please Enquire.</li><li>Please note that availability of this item is subject to change. For details, please Enquire.</li></ul>

Roughing It

A first edition copy of The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrim's Progress.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>Hartford, Connecticut: American Publishing Company, 1869.</li><li>Please note the image is a representative image of this item and not a photograph of the exact item available for purchase. For exact specifications, please Enquire.</li><li>Please note that availability of this item is subject to change. For details, please Enquire.</li></ul>

The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrim's Progress

A first edition copy of Sketches, New and Old.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>Hartford, Connecticut: The American Publishing Company, 1875.</li><li>Please note the image is a representative image of this item and not a photograph of the exact item available for purchase. For exact specifications, please Enquire.</li><li>Please note that availability of this item is subject to change. For details, please Enquire.</li></ul>

Sketches, New And Old

A first American edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885.</li><li>Please note the image is a representative image of this item and not a photograph of the exact item available for purchase. For exact specifications, please Enquire.</li><li>Please note that availability of this item is subject to change. For details, please Enquire.</li></ul>

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

An early issue of the first UK edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>London: Chatto &amp; Windus, 1884 (but 1886).</li><li>438 pages.</li><li>With frontispiece and 173 black and white illustrations by E.W. Kemble.</li><li>Bound in original decorative red cloth stamped in black and gilt, floral patterned ochre endpapers.</li></ul>

A first printing copy of the classic American children's book about an orphan boy growing up on the banks of the Mississippi River in Missouri.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>Hartford, Connecticut: The American Publishing Company, 1876.&nbsp;</li><li>Bound in original blue pictorial cloth elaborately stamped in black and gilt on spine and front board, peach endpapers, triple fly leaves on laid paper.&nbsp;</li></ul> While Twain is best known today as the author of canonical children's books like this one and its sequel, Huck Finn, before Tom Sawyer he was actually famous instead as a travel writer and humorist lecturer. Tom Sawyer was Twain's first novel entirely composed by him (an earlier novel, The Gilded Age, was co-authored with his friend Charles Dudley Warner). While it did eventually achieve bestseller status, its initial reception was modest, with a first printing of only 5,000 copies. Today, its reputation has made it a highly sought rarity in the first printing, as here, and copies in great condition are scarce. Twain bibliographer Kevin MacDonnell summarizes it thus: "This was a true boy's book, and surviving copies are proof of how rough on books little boys can be."

Adventures of Tom Sawyer

First printing, state A, of the continuing travels of Tom Sawyer, with authorial responsibility assigned to "Huck Finn, edited by Mark Twain."<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;Charles L. Webster &amp; Company,&nbsp;1894.</li><li>Illustrated with half-tone plates by Dan Beard.</li><li>Bound in original tan pictorial cloth.</li></ul>

Tom Sawyer Abroad

A first edition, first printing copy of Huckleberry Finn, in the publisher's full sheep binding.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;Charles Webster,&nbsp;1885 [1884].&nbsp;</li><li>366 pages.</li><li>Illustrated by E.W. Kemble with 174 black and white drawings.&nbsp;</li><li>Bound in original full sheep, leather labels on spine in black and red, housed in custom half goatskin box.</li></ul> Twain often had ambitious plans for the publication of his books, as well as the ability to execute them through his own publishing firm, Charles L. Webster and Company, run by his nephew-in-law. Anticipating brisk Christmas season sales, they planned four bindings for this informal sequel to Tom Sawyer: one in green pictorial cloth (the most common); one in blue pictorial cloth (to match Tom Sawyer); and two deluxe bindings, half morocco (goatskin) and sheep. Of the four bindings, the fewest copies were bound in sheep, estimated at around 2500 copies—though "they rarely survive in numbers proportional to the number that were originally bound" (Mac Donnell). The sheep copies were also among the earliest bound: most of the presentation copies from Twain are found in sheep. Because sheepskin notoriously takes wear more easily than other binding leathers like goat and calf, it is exceptionally difficult to find nice copies.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 

A first edition, first state of Twain's allegorical adventure of 16th-century England.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1882.</li><li>Illustrated throughout with wood engravings.&nbsp;</li><li>411 pages.</li><li>Franklin Press imprint on copyright page.</li><li>Bound in original green pictorial cloth elaborately stamped in gilt and black</li></ul> Playing on the theme of living a day of opposites (a tradition centuries old in holidays like Saturnalia), The Prince and the Pauper uses the plot of switching roles in order to bring to light legal injustices based on inequity—but with a characteristically Twain touch of humor and adventure. Twain put up extra money to make it a lavish production, in part because his wife hoped this book would establish his critical reputation, "even if the elegance of it eats up the publisher's profits and mine too" (Twain to his sister, quoted in Powers). This is technically the first American edition, as Twain issued authorized editions in London and Montreal a few days in advance so as to counteract piracies. According to biographer Ron Powers, the book was so well received that some reviewers were, in fact, startled that Twain had written it.

The Prince and the Pauper 

A first edition, first state copy of Mark Twain's novel Roughing It.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>Hartford:&nbsp;American Publishing Company,&nbsp;1872.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Features six plates tipped in and illustrations throughout.</li><li>Bound in publisher's half morocco and pebble cloth, with gilt lettering on paneled spine. </li></ul>

A first-edition copy of Mark Twain's A Curious Dream and Other Sketches.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>London:&nbsp;George Routledge and Sons,&nbsp;1872.</li><li>150 pages.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Spine tan with black lettering,</li><li>Housed in modern cloth slipcase with chemise, light brown with gilt lettering on black spine label.</li></ul>

A Curious Dream and Other Sketches

A deluxe edition of the book Word Shadows of the Great: The Lure of Autograph Collecting, which includes a handwritten manuscript leaf from Mark Twain's A Speech in Praise of Women.<ul><li>Thomas F. Madigan (American).</li><li>New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1930.</li><li>Numbered 298 of 300 copies.</li><li>Twain's manuscript leaf is written in ink on paper and is matted within the book.</li><li>Bound in original Japan vellum spine and boards and slipcase, with original glassine.</li><li>Accompanied by two typed letters, signed, from Madigan to a New York collector.</li></ul> It is well known that Mark Twain was extraordinarily devoted to his wife and daughters, and this is a remarkable testimony to his great love of women throughout history and literature. Only one other leaf of this manuscript is known to have survived.

Word Shadows of the Great with A Speech in Praise of Women Manuscript Leaf 

A single leaf from Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner's work The Gilded Age.<ul><li>Single manuscript leaf, taken from a set.</li><li>Written in Mark Twain's hand.</li><li>This page is from chapter 34.</li><li>Removed from binding.</li><li>Embossed stamp at top left.</li></ul> Written by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age was hatched over the dinner table when Clemens and Warner were challenged by their wives to write a work that would be better than those they were busy complaining about. Clemens wrote the first eleven chapters, based on members of his family including his father and mother, while Warner wrote the next twelve chapters, purely fictionally. The remaining chapters were generally written by one or the other, while the resolution was written in tandem.

The Gilded Age Manuscript Leaf

A first edition, illustrated copy of Mark Twain's A True Story, and the Recent Carnival of Crime.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1877.</li><li>92 pages</li><li>Illustrated, including 4 full-page illustrations.</li><li>Bound in the original green cloth, upper cover blocked in black and lettered in gilt.</li></ul> The first part of this work, A True Story, was first published in The Atlantic in November 1874. The story is a retelling of the experiences of Mary Ann Cord (renamed “Aunt Rachel” in the story), the African-American cook at Clemens' sister-in-law’s farm in Elmira, New York. Born into slavery in Virginia, she recounts the horror of her husband and seven children being taken away from her at a slave auction. She is sold to a North Carolina plantation, but when freed by Union forces during the Civil War, she stays and works as a cook for a regiment of Union soldiers. When the regiment is joined by a colored regiment, she is shocked to be reunited with her youngest son who had been a fugitive slave prior to the war. Written in dialect later made famous by Twain in Huck Finn, A True Story also appeared within Twain's Sketches New and Old (1875). This edition, issued with another story in which Clemens recounts being visited by his own conscience in the form of a dwarf, was issued as part of Osgood's Vest Pocket Series.

A True Story, and the Recent Carnival of Crime

A first-edition copy of Mark Twain's Punch, Brothers, Punch! And Other Sketches.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>New York: Slote, Woodman &amp; Co, 1878.</li><li>140 pages.</li><li>Small octavo.</li><li>Includes the following: “Punch, Brother, Punch;” “Speech on the Weather...;” “Rogers;” “Map of Paris (with Map);” “Random Notes of an Idle Excursion;” “Speech at a Dinner of the Knights of St. Patrick;” “An Encounter with an Interviewer;” “The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence, etc.;” “The Canvasser’s Tale.”</li><li>Green cloth stamped in black and gilt, signed George Kirby Holmes on flyleaf.</li></ul>

Punch, Brothers, Punch! And Other Sketches

A first-edition copy of Mark Twain's&nbsp;Punch, Brothers, Punch! And Other Sketches.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>New York: Slote, Woodman &amp; Co, 1878.</li><li>Small octavo.</li><li>Bound in the original red coated pictorial paper wrappers with spine reading “Mark Twain's Sketches," "Price, 25 Cents."</li></ul>

A finely bound, first edition and first issue copy of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>Illustrated by F. T. Merrill.&nbsp;</li><li>The Prince and the Pauper, A Tale for Young People of All Ages.</li><li>Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1882.</li><li>411 pages.</li><li>Quarto.</li><li>Franklin imprint on the copyright page.</li><li>Bound in publisher's half morocco over marbled covered boards with matching marbled endpapers and marbled edges.</li></ul>

The Prince and the Pauper

A finely bound, first American edition of Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>Illustrated by E.W. Kemble.&nbsp;</li><li>New York: Charles L. Webster, 1885.</li><li>366 pages.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Bound in publisher's deluxe Morocco binding, deluxe half brown morocco and marbled boards, gilt spine with raised bands, with marbled edges and endpapers.</li></ul>

First edition of Mark Twain's travel narrative Following the Equator, A Journey Around the World with numerous illustrations by the best artists of the period.<ul><li>Mark Twain [S.L.&nbsp;Clemens] (American).</li><li>Hartford, Connecticut: The American Publishing Company, 1897.</li><li>712 pages.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Hartford imprint on title page and the signature mark "11" at p. 161.</li><li>Bound in half-red Morocco and marbled covers with marbled endpapers, top edge gilt with gilt lettering and designs on spine.</li></ul>

Following The Equator, A Journey Around the World

First edition of Mark Twain's Sketches New and Old.<ul><li>Mark Twain [Samuel Clemens]&nbsp;(American).</li><li>Hartford, Conn: The American Publishing Company, 1875.</li><li>320 pages.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Edges gilt.</li><li>Bound in the rare publisher's original fine 3/4 crushed morocco leather binding, blind ruled spine with gilt lettering in the second and fourth compartments.</li></ul> Twain's 63 often outrageous sketches, composed between 1863 and 1875. From a piece about the difficulty of getting a pocket watch repaired properly to thoughts on bureaucrats, courts of law, the profession of journalism, the claims of science and the workings of government.

Sketches, New and Old

First American edition, first issue of Mark Twain’s classic&nbsp;The Prince and the Pauper.<ul><li>Mark Twain [Samuel Clemens] (American).</li><li>Illustrations by Frank Merrill (American), John Harley (American), and L. S. Ipsen (Danish-American).</li><li>The Prince and the Pauper: A Tale for Young People of All Ages.</li><li>J.R. Osgood and Company: Boston, 1882.</li><li>411 pages.</li><li>192 illustrations.</li><li>Bound in new full green morocco, gilt edges and gilt decorations with facsimile signature of Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens, and the original cover and spine are bound into the rear of the book.</li></ul>

Rebound first edition, first printing of Twain's famed children's book.<ul><li>Mark Twain (American).</li><li>Hartford:&nbsp;The American Publishing Company,&nbsp;1876.&nbsp;</li><li>[I]–XVI, [17]–[275] pages.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Rebound in green cloth with gilt lettering on spine.</li></ul>

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

First American edition of Twain's The Prince and the Pauper: A Tale for Young People of All Ages.<ul><li>Mark Twain [Samuel Clemens]&nbsp;(American).</li><li>Boston:&nbsp;James R. Osgood &amp; Co,&nbsp;1882.</li><li>411 pages.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Includes 192 illustrations.</li><li>Bound in original green cloth gilt.</li><li>Housed in gilt-stamped slipcase.</li></ul>

Finely printed edition of the story that first brought Twain fame, exceptionally scarce with his signature on the front pastedown.<ul><li>Mark Twain [S.L.&nbsp;Clemens] (American).</li><li>Illustrated by F. Strothmann (American).</li><li>New York and London:&nbsp;Harper &amp; Brothers,&nbsp;1903.</li><li>[4], 66 pages.&nbsp;</li><li>Black and white frontispiece.</li><li>Signed by Twain in black ink on front pastedown.</li><li>Bound in original red pictorial cloth with frog design stamped in brown, white and green.</li></ul> Twain's first published works, as young as 16, were brief but hilarious retellings of events he had witnessed, a formula he would carry into his earliest professional work as a journalist out West. Invited by the famous comedian writer Artemus Ward to contribute a humorous story to one of his collections, Twain sent a piece across the country only to have it left out because it arrived too late. That piece, a riff on the well-known story in the West about a confidence man getting conned in a frog leaping contest, ended up in the newspaper New York Saturday Press instead – and took off. Newspapers across the country picked up the story and Twain became a literary sensation. In 1867, Twain published it as the leading story in his first book: in a run of only 1,000 copies, it sold out within 5 days. This early 20th-century edition is unusual and exceptionally desirable, signed by him.

The Jumping Frog

A photo postcard showing Twain smoking a pipe in a windowsill at Stormfield, flanked by his business advisor, Ralph Ashcroft, and his secretary, Isabel Lyon.<ul><li>Mark Twain [S.L.&nbsp;Clemens] (American).</li><li>[Stormfield, Redding, Connecticut], N.p: "Xmas Day", 1908.</li><li>Inscription reads: "Dear Mr. Coe: I am smoking your health in your noble cigars. I wish you &amp; Mrs. Mai were here to assist. In the picture it is family worship. I am trying to do the Beatitudes, &amp; Ashcroft is prompting. With love to you both – SLC".</li><li>The photo was taken by William Ireland Starr just a few weeks earlier, and Twain had several postcards printed up using the image.</li></ul> William Robertson Coe (1869-1955) was a famous rare book collector (Coe Collection at Yale), insurance and railroad executive and American Studies pioneer. His wife, Mai Rogers Coe (1875-1924), knew Twain through his friendship with her parents, the wealthy industrialist Henry Huttleston Rogers and Abbie Palmer Rogers. Rogers was Twain's greatest friend towards the end of his life, and was at times believed to be the richest man in America, outdoing his partner John D. Rockefeller.

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