CLEMENS, Samuel Langhorne (“Mark Twain”) (1835–1910). The Writings of… New York: Gabriel Wells, 1923–1925.
37 volumes, 8vo. Engraved title vignette, numerous photogravures and plates including frontispiece after drawings, paintings, etc. by various artists; each with printed tissue guards. Original blue cloth–backed boards, printed spine labels, edges uncut (some worming to cover fore–edges to Vols. XVI and XVII, else fine); original printed dust jackets (spine panels uniformly sunned; 4 ½” tear with loss to Vol. I spine panel and supplied in facsimile, old adhesive ghosting to Vol. XIII spine panel, Vol. XIX with facsimile jacket, some worming along flaps with separation to Vols. XVI and XVII). PUBLISHER’S RARE PROSPECTUS laid in.
LIMITED EDITION, number 79 of 1024 copies of the “Definitive Edition” SIGNED BY MARK TWAIN (“S. L. Clemens/Mark Twain”) on the front flyleaf of Volume I with the attestation on the facing page signed by Clemens biographer and executor, Albert Bigelow Paine: “The fly–leaf was signed by Mark Twain in 1906 in anticipation of the present definitive edition of his works”. According to the prospectus, the first 100 copies were set aside to be put into fine bindings but copy number 79 stayed in its original binding. “It was Mark Twain’s most cherished desire that a definitive and complete edition of his entire literary output be published… a project which ever since he passed away, has been increasingly demanded by the public” (from the prospectus).
In the RARE ORIGINAL DUST JACKETS and with the last two volumes containing Twain’s Autobiography that were published two years after the fact, often found lacking in other sets. BAL 3691.