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  • "Taking the pledge will not make bad liquor good, but it will improve it": The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; inscribed by Mark Twain

    TWAIN, MARK. [SAMUEL L. CLEMENS].

    Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade).

    New York: Charles L. Webster and Company 1886.

    Early printing of Twain’s masterpiece, inscribed by Mark Twain. Octavo, bound in half buckram by Roycroft with paper labels to the spine, tissue-guarded frontispiece photogravure plate of Gerhardt’s bust of Clemens, one hundred and seventy-four illustrations by E. W. Kemble. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the title page, “To Mr. Garth W. Cate: Taking the pledge will not make bad liquor good, but it will improve it. Truly Yours, Mark Twain, Nov. 25/06.” With a lengthy letter of provenance dated October 14, 1964 and signed by the recipient which reads in part, “Dear Mr. Jacobs, If I had been younger and could have carried out a study of some of Mark Twain’s motives and acts, I never would have parted with my cherished old copy of the first printing of Huckleberry Finn. This was the first book given to me by my father… In 1906-1907 I was a lecture manager for Elbert Hubbard, the Sage of East Aurora, whose quasi-socialist group The Roycrofters was quite famous as an arts and crafts enter at East Aurora, New York. By that time the HUCK FINN was loose in its covers… Elbert Hubbard saw the book on my desk when I brought it in to have it rebound in the Roycroft Bindery. Said he, “No author could resist seeing such a well worn volume testifying to the delight it had given many readers. Why don’t you send it down to Mark Twain and ask him to inscribed it. I’ll sign and send Mark a few of my own books along with it, thus salting the mine for you.” So I sent HUCK back to its spiritual father, and when it returned I was somewhat shocked, having been sent to a temperance Sunday School by a whiskey fearing mother, to find that he had inscribed it “To Mr. Garth W. Cate – Taking the pledge will not make bad liquor good, but will improve it.” (Incidentally it was several years after that before I took my first drink. I am an abstainer today). Later on I was to marry a Christian Science practitioner, and when she saw this inscription she exclaimed: Why, that is the most immoral thing I ever saw! How could a great author send such a sentiment to a young man?” A careful search of Mark Twain’s writings revealed that he had a deep-seated lifetime aversion for pledges, especially when they had been obtained under pressure from those of an older generation. It seems when Mark was a boy in his early teens, his mother and aunt talked and pressured him into signing a pledge not to touch alcohol in any from. Later he was to refer to this as “A ball and chain clanking behind him down the years of time.” He hated such restrictions, especially when thrust upon him while immature.” In very good condition. With the original publisher’s decorated green cloth cover bound in and three rare portraits of Twain tipped in. With two further letters of provenance and several period Twain-related clippings adhered to several pages. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. An exceptional presentation copy with noted provenance.

    Price: $75,000.00     Item Number: 123083

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  • Exceptionally rare first English edition of Mark Twain's The Gilded Age

    TWAIN, MARK AND CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. [SAMUEL L. CLEMENS].

    The Gilded Age: A Novel.

    London: George Routledge and Sons 1874.

    First English edition of the rarest of Mark Twain’s works: the only novel he wrote with a collaborator and the book that gave the era its name in history. Octavo, three volumes, original publishers green cloth, gilt titles to the spine, illustrated. The only multi-volume work Clemens produced, except for the two-volume Tramp Abroad (London, 1880), the first English edition of The Gilded Age is the rarest of Mark Twain’s major works and the most difficult to obtain. Its rarity is due largely to its format, three volume sets were quite expensive and were produced almost solely for circulating libraries during the Reconstruction era, and so, the books were vigorously read by many readers, generally rebound, and most were pulped in paper drives during the Second World War. In 1873, Samuel Clemens had written only four other major books – The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain’s (Burlesque) Autobiography, and Roughing It. A relatively unknown American author in London at the time, the English edition would have necessarily been small, no more than a few hundred. From the library of noted collector Frederic R. Kirkland. Kirkland formed a well-known collection of Americana and American and British literature, much of which was sold in 1962. In very good condition. Housed in a custom half morocco folding chemise slipcase. Exceptionally rare, with one other copy traced in auction records and only the Yale set listed in the Bibliography of American Literature.

    Price: $65,000.00     Item Number: 133018

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  • INSCRIBED AND SIGNED FIRST EDITION OF MARK TWAIN’S THE GILDED AGE TO MRS. P.T. BARNUM ACCOMPANIED BY AN AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED

    TWAIN, MARK AND CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. [SAMUEL L. CLEMENS].

    The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-Day.

    Hartford: American Publishing Company 1874.

    First edition, mixed state of the only novel Clemens wrote with a collaborator and the book that gave the era it’s name in history.

    Association copy, inscribed by Mark Twain on the fly-leaf, “To Mrs. P. T. Barnum with the kindest wishes of The Author Oct 1875.”

    Octavo, bound in three quarter morocco, gilt titles to the spine, marbled endpapers, all edges marbled, fully illustrated from new designs by Hoppin, Stephens, Williams, White, etc., folding map. Sold by subscription only.

    The volume is accompanied by an autograph letter signed by Clemens to the second wife of P.T. Barnum of 14 April [no year]: “My Dear Mrs. Barnum: My wife and I are greatly pained to learn of the decease of Mrs. Seeley whom we remember so well & so pleasantly. Words are of but little value at such a time, but still we are moved to tender our deep sympathy to you & your household in you great bereavement. Truly yours Samuel L. Clemens.”

    Twain and Barnum were, by various accounts, friends, mutual admirers, and rivals. After visiting Barnum’s American Business Museum in New York City as a teenager, Twain criticized it as “one vast peanut stand” yet upon the opening of Barnum’s Hippodrome in 1875, he remarked, “I hardly know which to wonder at most…its stupendousness, or the pluck of the man who has dared to venture upon so vast an enterprise.” Clemens alluded to Barnum frequently in both his published works and private correspondence, and although he received many invitations from Barnum to dine in New York, he always declined. Barnum even proposed that the two collaborate on an anthology of “queer literature” based on letters he received from strangers hoping to join his circus, but Twain expressed little interest in the project. In 1867, Twain published “Barnum’s First Speech in Congress” , a satire of Reconstruction politics that painted Barnum as a ruthless exploiter of the performers he employed. Twain referred to the work as a “spiritual telegraph” delivered to him in advance from the “spirit world” and was certain that Barnum would never be elected to high office.

    In very good condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. A very unique association copy.

    Price: $50,000.00     Item Number: 133022

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  • First edition of The Innocents Abroad; inscribed by Mark Twain to Mrs. P. T. Barnum

    TWAIN, MARK. [SAMUEL L. CLEMENS].

    The Innocents Abroad, Or The New Pilgrims’ Progress.

    Hartford: American Publishing Company 1874.

    First edition, second issue of the author’s second book, one of the best-selling travel books of all-time. Octavo, bound in three quarter morocco with gilt titles to the spine, marbled endpapers, all edges marbled, with two hundred and thirty-four illustrations. Association copy, inscribed by Mark Twain on the fly-leaf, “To Mrs. P. T. Barnum from Yours Truly Samuel L. Clemens Mark Twain Oct 1875.” The recipient, Nancy Fish, was the second wife of American showman P. T. Barnum. Twain and Barnum were, by various accounts, friends, mutual admirers and rivals. After visiting Barnum’s American Business Museum in New York City as a teenager, Twain criticized it as “one vast peanut stand” yet upon the opening of Barnum’s Hippodrome in 1875, he remarked, “I hardly know which to wonder at most—its stupendousness, or the pluck of the man who has dared to venture upon so vast an enterprise. I mean to come to see the show,— but to me you are the biggest marvel connected with it.” He alluded to Barnum frequently in both his published works and private correspondence, and although he received many invitations from Barnum to dine in New York, he always declined. Barnum even proposed that the two collaborate on an anthology of “queer literature” based on letters he received from strangers hoping to join his circus, but Twain expressed little interest in the project. In 1867, Twain published “Barnum’s First Speech in Congress”, a satire of Reconstruction politics that painted Barnum as a ruthless exploiter of the performers he employed. Twain referred to the work as a “spiritual telegraph” delivered “to [him] in advance from the spirit world” and was certain that Barnum would never be elected to high office. Barnum was married to Charity Hallett from 1829 until her death in 1873, and they had four children. In 1874, a few months after his wife’s death, he married Nancy Fish, his friend’s daughter who was 40 years his junior. They were married until 1891 when Barnum died of a stroke at his home. He was buried in Mountain Grove Cemetery, Bridgeport, which he designed himself. In very good condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. An outstanding association copy.

    Price: $35,000.00     Item Number: 133104

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  • Mark Twain's Roughing It; Inscribed by him to Mrs. P. T. Barnum

    TWAIN, MARK. [SAMUEL L. CLEMENS].

    Roughing It.

    Hartford: American Publishing Company 1874.

    Early printing of Twain’s first semi-autobiographical work of travel literature, essentially a prequel to The Innocents Abroad. Octavo, bound in three quarter morocco with gilt titles to the spine, fully illustrated by eminent artists with wood engravings throughout. Association copy, inscribed by Mark Twain on the fly-leaf, “For Mrs. P. T. Barnum with kindest wishes of Samuel L. Clemens Oct. 1875.” The recipient, Nancy Fish, was the second wife of American showman P. T. Barnum. Twain and Barnum were, by various accounts, friends, mutual admirers and rivals. After visiting Barnum’s American Business Museum in New York City as a teenager, Twain criticized it as “one vast peanut stand” yet upon the opening of Barnum’s Hippodrome in 1875, he remarked, “I hardly know which to wonder at most—its stupendousness, or the pluck of the man who has dared to venture upon so vast an enterprise. I mean to come to see the show,— but to me you are the biggest marvel connected with it.” He alluded to Barnum frequently in both his published works and private correspondence, and although he received many invitations from Barnum to dine in New York, he always declined. Barnum even proposed that the two collaborate on an anthology of “queer literature” based on letters he received from strangers hoping to join his circus, but Twain expressed little interest in the project. In 1867, Twain published “Barnum’s First Speech in Congress”, a satire of Reconstruction politics that painted Barnum as a ruthless exploiter of the performers he employed. Twain referred to the work as a “spiritual telegraph” delivered “to [him] in advance from the spirit world” and was certain that Barnum would never be elected to high office. Barnum was married to Charity Hallett from 1829 until her death in 1873, and they had four children. In 1874, a few months after his wife’s death, he married Nancy Fish, his friend’s daughter who was 40 years his junior. They were married until 1891 when Barnum died of a stroke at his home. He was buried in Mountain Grove Cemetery, Bridgeport, which he designed himself. In very good condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. An outstanding association copy.

    Price: $30,000.00     Item Number: 133025

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  • Rare First Edition, First Printing of Mark Twain's The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches

    TWAIN, MARK [SAMUEL L. CLEMENS].

    The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches.

    New York: C.H. Webb 1867.

    First edition, first printing of the author’s rare first book. Octavo, original cloth, first issue lacking the leaf of ads facing the title page but with unbroken type on pages 21, 66 and 198. In very good condition with light wear to the extremities. A sharp example.

    Price: $18,500.00     Item Number: 125145

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  • FIRST EDITION OF MARK TWAIN'S ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN

    TWAIN, MARK. [SAMUEL L. CLEMENS].

    Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

    New York: Charles L. Webster and Company 1885.

    First edition, first issue of Mark Twain’s masterpiece. Octavo, original publisher’s decorated green cloth, with 174 illustrations by Edward W. Kemble. Contains all of the agreed upon first issue points for the clothbound book: page 9 with “Decided” remaining uncorrected (to “Decides”); page 13, illustration captioned “Him and another Man” listed as on page 88; page 57, 11th line from bottom reads “with the was,” instead of “with the saw”. Other points of bibliographical interest included in this copy are the frontispiece portrait with the cloth table cover under the bust, bearing the Heliotype Printing Co. imprint; copyright page dated 1884; page 143 with “l” missing from “Col.” at top of illustration and with broken “b” in “body” on line seven; page 155 with a larger final “5”; page 161, no signature mark “11”. As to issue points resulting from damaged plates (e.g. the dropped “5” on p 155), MacDonnell concludes, “they are of no significance in determining the sequence of the printing of the sheets. All of these occur at random in relation to each other within copies of the first printing, a strong indicator of the use of multiple plates, and possibly mixed sheets within the collating process” (“Huck Finn” Firsts Magazine). In very good condition with light rubbing to the extremities.

    Price: $15,000.00     Item Number: 117039

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  • “That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it": First Edition Of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in The Rare Original Publisher’s Morocco

    TWAIN, MARK [SAMUEL L. CLEMENS].

    Adventures of Huckleberry Finn [Tom Sawyer’s Comrade].

    New York: Charles L. Webster and Company 1885.

    First edition, first issue of Twain’s masterpiece, one of approximately 500 copies bound in publisher’s three-quarters morocco binding. Octavo, original three-quarters brown morocco and marbled boards, gilt-decorated spine, marbled endpapers. Lithographic frontispiece and with 174 illustrations by E.W. Kemble, photographic portrait frontispiece of the bust of Mark Twain by Karl Gerhardt. Copies of Huckleberry Finn in the original publisher’s leather bindings are quite rare: “The relative rarity of the cloth and leather bindings is clear. Less than two weeks before publication, [the publisher] Webster announced that he was binding 20,000 copies in cloth, another 2,500 in sheep, and 500 copies in three-quarter leather. The remaining 7000 copies of the first printing were probably bound up in similar proportions leather copies dried out, cracked apart, and have survived in even fewer numbers than the original production numbers would promise” (MacDonnell, 35). In very good condition, rebacked with light rubbing to extremities. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. A very nice example.

    Price: $12,500.00     Item Number: 73064

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  • FIRST EDITION OF MARK TWAIN'S ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN

    TWAIN, MARK. [SAMUEL CLEMENS].

    Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade).

    New York: Charles L. Webster and Company 1885.

    First edition, first issue of Mark Twain’s masterpiece. Octavo, original publisher’s decorated green cloth, with 174 illustrations by Edward W. Kemble. With all of the agreed upon first issue points for the clothbound book: page 9 with “Decided” remaining uncorrected (to “Decides”); page 13, illustration captioned “Him and another Man” listed as on page 88; page 57, 11th line from bottom reads “with the was,” instead of “with the saw”. Other points of bibliographical interest included in this copy are the frontispiece portrait with the tablecloth under the bust, bearing the Heliotype Printing Co. imprint; copyright page dated 1884;  page 143 with “l” missing from “Col.” at top of illustration and with broken “b” in “body” on line seven; page 155 with a larger final “5”; page 161, no signature mark “11”. As to issue points resulting from damaged plates (e.g. the dropped “5” on p 155), MacDonnell concludes, “they are of no significance in determining the sequence of the printing of the sheets. All of these occur at random in relation to each other within copies of the first printing, a strong indicator of the use of multiple plates, and possibly mixed sheets within the collating process” (“Huck Finn” Firsts Magazine). In very good condition with the gilt to the spine bright. Bookplate to the pastedown.

    Price: $12,000.00     Item Number: 123228

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  • “That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it": First Edition Of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in The Rare Original Publisher’s Morocco

    TWAIN, MARK [SAMUEL L. CLEMENS].

    Adventures of Huckleberry Finn [Tom Sawyer’s Comrade].

    New York: Charles L. Webster and Company 1885.

    First edition, first issue of Twain’s masterpiece, one of approximately 500 copies bound in publisher’s three-quarters morocco binding. Octavo, original three-quarters brown morocco and marbled boards, gilt-decorated spine, marbled endpapers. Lithographic frontispiece and with 174 illustrations by E.W. Kemble, photographic portrait frontispiece of the bust of Mark Twain by Karl Gerhardt. Copies of Huckleberry Finn in the original publisher’s leather bindings are quite rare: “The relative rarity of the cloth and leather bindings is clear. Less than two weeks before publication, [the publisher] Webster announced that he was binding 20,000 copies in cloth, another 2,500 in sheep, and 500 copies in three-quarter leather. The remaining 7000 copies of the first printing were probably bound up in similar proportions leather copies dried out, cracked apart, and have survived in even fewer numbers than the original production numbers would promise” (MacDonnell, 35). In very good condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. A nice example.

    Price: $11,500.00     Item Number: 105655

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