The Writings of Mark Twain (in 37 vols)

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1929. Stormfield Edition. Limited to 1,024 numbered sets. Thirty-seven octavo volumes. Original dark blue fine-bead cloth, gilt triple-rule border with the gilt stencil signature of Mark Twain on the front cover. Spine lettered in gilt, top edge gilt, others uncut. Title-pages printed in red and black. Photogravure frontispieces and plates (including portraits) after drawings, paintings, etc. by E.W. Kemble, Howard Pyle, Dan Beard, W.H.W. Bicknell, P. Newell, J.Allen St. John, A.B. Frost, and others. A Fine set in the original pale blue dust jackets with printed paper labels on the spine.

The Stormfield edition of the Writings of Mark Twain, published in 1929, is identical in every way (with the exception of Twain's signature) to the Definitive Edition which had been published by Gabriel Wells in 1922. Even the limitation of these two sets were the same, both being limited to 1,024 numbered copies. The only difference between the two editions was the addition of an inserted 'signed leaf' in the first volume of the Definitive edition. Twain had signed these leaves in 1906 in anticipation of the edition but died but died twelve years before its publication in 1922. In fact the full cloth binding on the Stormfield edition is certainly superior to the quarter blue cloth over paper boards of the Definitive edition.

The Stormfield edition was named after Mark Twain's final home "The Clemens family was itinerant from 1891 until well after Olivia's death in 1904, trying out a number of houses, none of which they found ultimately congenial. Fully out of debt, Clemens decided toward the end of his life to try and recover the feeling of stability that the Hartford home represented by building another house, this time in Redding, Connecticut, where he had purchased nearly 250 acres of land in 1906. In 1907, he commissioned John Mead Howells, son of William Dean Howells, to design the house, and allowed, or perhaps even encouraged, daughter Clara to participate in planning and overseeing construction. Built on the money he earned on "Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven," he named the house "Stormfield" and lived there until his death in 1910. Clara sold the house many years after her father's death. When the house burned down, its owners built a near replica, which remains in private hands" (Camfield).