[CLEMENS, Samuel Langhorne ("Mark Twain") (1835–1910)]. –– JACOBS, W.W. Salthaven. London: Methuen & Co., [1908].
8vo. (Few stains to pp. 156–157). 13 plates by Will Owen. Original pictorial cloth stamped in black and lettered in gilt (recased, light rubbing at extreme ends, front hinge cracked); folding box.
FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED TO MARK TWAIN FROM THE AUTHOR on the half–title. TWAIN’S PERSONAL COPY, SIGNED AND DATED ON THE FRONT PASTEDOWN BY TWAIN AND ADDITIONALLY INSCRIBED on the half–title: “It’s a delightful book. Mark”. Below, Twain further reaffirms his previous statement, apparently in passing the book to someone else: “Bog House, Bermuda, March/10. I have read it about 5 times. The above verdict stands”. Evidently, Twain found Chapter Five especially praiseworthy. On two pages he has annotated the text with over 90 words calling the book “refreshingly sweet & clean & delicate”. Includes numerous corrections throughout in presumably Twain’s hand.
In Mark Twain’s Letters, Vol. VI, Albert Bigelow Paine comments that “Clemens was a great admirer of the sea stories of W.W. Jacobs and generally kept one or more of this author’s volumes in reach of his bed, where most of his reading was done”. In a letter dated 28 October 1908 to Jacobs, Twain thanks the author for sending him this copy of Salthaven and that he will begin pass the book around. He applauds the author by placing Salthaven next to Jacobs’ Dialstone Lane “because I think it has a fair and honest right to that position”.