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Lot 154

CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE ("MARK TWAIN"). 1835-1910.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Charles L. Webster and Co., 1885.

5 December 2019, 10:00 EST
New York

US$2,000 - US$3,000

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CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE ("MARK TWAIN"). 1835-1910.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Charles L. Webster and Co., 1885. 4to. Frontispiece by E.W. Kemble, portrait bust by Karl Gerhardt by the Heliotype Printing Co, no cloth visible, with artist's signature along edge of bust, cancel title page dated 1884 in copyright, 173 illustrations by E.W. Kemble, p 283/4 a cancel. Publisher's green cloth pictorially stamped in black and gilt, tips repaired, crack to front hinge after frontis, front hinge strengthened.

"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn...." (Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa, p 23).

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, with the three substantive points of the first printing: "decided" to p 9, "88" on p 13, and "with the was" on p 57. As to issue points resulting from damaged plates (e.g. the dropped "5" on p 155), Kevin 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 among the Issue-Mongers," Firsts, Vol 8, No 9, Sept 1998, pp 28-35). BAL 3415. Grolier American 87.

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