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Lot 250

CLEMENS (SAMUEL L.) 'MARK TWAIN'
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, And other Sketches... Edited by John Paul, FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, New York, C.H. Webb, 1867

24 June 2015, 11:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £6,250 inc. premium

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CLEMENS (SAMUEL L.) 'MARK TWAIN'

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, And other Sketches... Edited by John Paul, FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, with advertisement leaf on cream-yellow paper inserted before title and unbroken type on pages 21, 66 and 198, small damp spot in upper corner of a few leaves, publisher's maroon cloth over bevelled boards, front cover stamped and lettered in gilt with the frog lower left, spine lettered in gilt, lower cover with frog stamped in blind (corners worn, spine slightly chipped at foot and bumped at head), preserved in cloth chemise and maroon morocco-backed slip case [BAL 3310], 8vo, New York, C.H. Webb, 1867

Footnotes

A VERY GOOD UNRESTORED COPY OF THE FIRST ISSUE OF MARK TWAIN'S FIRST BOOK, WITH A DISTINGUISHED PROVENANCE. "Copies were bound simultaneously in green, terra cotta, dark brown, lavender, blue, deep purple, maroon and red cloth" (Macdonnell, 'The Primary First Editions of Mark Twain', in Firsts, vol. 8, no. 7/8). The present copy has the frog in the corner on the front cover as opposed to the centre, but priority has not been established.

Provenance: Thomas Beer (1889–1940, biographer and author of The Mauve Decade), inherited from his mother, Alice Baldwin, whose ownership inscription appears on the fly-leaf.

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