Fine Books & Manuscripts

CLEMENS, Samuel Langhorne ("Mark Twain") (1835–1910). The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885. 8vo (216 x 171 mm). Lithographic frontispiece by E. W. Kemble with tissue–guard (pale spotting at margins), photographic portrait frontispiece of the bust of Mark Twain by Karl Gerhardt (BAL state 1), in–textillustrations throughout. Original publisher’s green gilt–decorated pictorial cloth, (very faint spotting to lower upper cover, light rubbing at ends, front hinge cracked, occasional spotting to text, later ownership inscription to ffep with contemporary booksellers’ ticket at foot); housed in a custom cloth clamshell with morocco spine label titled in gilt. FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, EARLY STATE, with the following issue points: the title leaf is either in the second or third state (first state only noted in the prospectus; no copy has ever been seen or reported); first state portrait frontispiece; first state of p. 13 with "Him and Another Man" plate incorrectly listed as being on p. 88; first state of p. 57 with "was" for “saw”; third state of pagination on p. 155; with final blank 238. BAL 3415; Grolier, 100 American, 87; Johnson, p.77. A FINE COPY.