Search Results: Signed Books by mark twain

Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1874.

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… Read More

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… Read More

Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1874.

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1929. The Writings. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1929. Memorial Edition, one of 90 numbered copies (this copy being number 55). Thirty-seven octavo volumes. Title-pages in blue and black. With inserted portrait frontispieces. Publisher's three quarter brown morocco over polished brown cloth boards. Spines decoratively stamped in gilt, tooled in compartments with two raised bands, top edges gilt, others uncut. The first twelve volumes are a slightly lighter color than the rest. A magnificent set of this fine and rare edition of Twain, complete with the Biography (volumes 30-33) and Letters (volumes 34 & 35) edited by Paine, and the Autobiography (volumes 36 & 37). With a letter and manuscript page tipped-in volume I. [With:] TWAIN, Mark (1835-1910). Autograph Letter Signed "S.L. Clemens" and initialed "SLC." Kaltenleutgeben: July 26, [18]98 (Twain and his family had a villa in this Austrian town in 1898). Written in black ink. Two twelvemo pages on one octavo leaf,… Read More

Vancouver, CA: np, 1895. First edition. Matted and framed. Very Good. LONG HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT SIGNED LETTER WRITTEN BY S.L. CLEMENS (A.K.A. MARK TWAIN). The impact of the Paige typesetting machine on Mark Twain's life cannot be overstated. Awed by the prospect of the biggest revolution in textual history since the Gutenburg Press, Twain held faith in the machine's potential despite many warning signs, notably persistent breakdowns of Paige's machine and the advent of Linotype. Why did Twain refuse to let go of this dream? "[P]erhaps, in the end, the Paige typesetting machine was simply the best tall tale he'd ever heard," writes critic Ron Powers, arguing that the financial decline in Twain's life resulting from his misjudged investment of his own wealth and his wife Olivia's inheritance (along with a series of personal tragedies including the loss of his wife and two of his daughters in the decade following 1895) correspond directly with a diminution in his characteristic wit and levity… Read More

1876. Signed. (TWAIN, Mark) TAINE, Hippolyte. The Ancient Regime. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1876. Octavo, original green cloth. Housed in a custom half polished calf clamshell box. $25,000.Mark Twain's signed copy of Hippolyte Taine's The Ancient Regime, signed ""Saml. L. Clemens, Hartford 1876"" on the front flyleaf and annotated by him on the final text leaf, ""Finished Jan 29th"" and beneath that note, ""Finished Sept. 10th,"" indicating that he read the book twice. With the bookplate prepared by Anderson Auction Company in 1911 stating ""This book is from the Library of Samuel Longhorne Clemens (Mark Twain)"" signed by Twain's literary executor and biographer Albert Bigelow Paine.Twain scholar Sherwood Cummings wrote of this book, ""[Twain] not only referred to it during the next decade in his notebooks and correspondence, but borrowed liberally from it for material and incidents in both The… Read More

Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885-01-01. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Signed. Publisher's original 1/2 leather, with page edges, pastedowns, and endpapers all marbled. One of just 500 copies printed (Raptis Rare Books, internet article, March 2014) and comes with a copy of the infamous "priapic plate", one of 100 proof copies made by Merle Johnson from an original leaf from an unbound copy found in the collection of Willard S. Morse.///LAID in is a hand written response, declining an invitation, on a folded Quarry Farm labeled note, dated "Sept. 17/03", and SIGNED, "S. L. Clemens". (Quarry Farm was the home of Susan Langdon Crane, sister of Mark Twain's wife Olivia, and often the summer residence of the Twains. Mark Twain wrote, at least in part, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn while at Quarry Farm). The note sheet was created with a fold to yield 4 writing surfaces although this message is confined solely to the letterhead panel; The note was… Read More

Hartford: American Publishing Co, 1899. Limited. hardcover. fine. 25 volumes. Illustrated. Full red crushed morocco, gilt lettering & dentelles, raised bands; marbled end-papers. Hartford: American Publishing Co., 1899. Limited Edition. Fine.<br/><br/> Number 375 of 512 sets. Volume I is signed by Twain; Volume X, the first volume of "The Gilded Age" has a separate limitation page signed by Charles Dudley Warner.<br/><br/>

1904. Signed. HERFORD, Oliver. The Rubaiyat of a Persian Kitten. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1904. Small octavo, original printed gray boards rebacked, original spine laid down. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. $16,500.First edition, presentation copy from Mark Twain to his daughter, boldly inscribed by Twain on the front pastedown, “Clara Clemens from one of her principal friends—her father.”Herford's playful satire of the The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, beautifully illustrated by him, follows the adventures of a Persian kitten in search of milk who encounters a series of calamities (""And that Inverted Bowl of Skyblue Delf/ That helpless lies upon the Pantry Shelf—/ Lift not your eyes to It for help, for It/ Is quite as empty as you are yourself""). Herford, English-born cartoonist, illustrator, poet, author and wit, was a regular contributor to such magazines as Harper's Weekly and Punch. He evidently was acquainted with Twain,… Read More

Mark Twain, 1901. First Edition. Unknown. Very Good. A superb and important 2-page Autograph Letter Signed by Mark Twain (signed S. L Clemens) to his publisher, Francis Edward Bliss of American Publishing Company. Twain, writing from 26 Broadway in NYC, opens with a visit to the offices of Harpers, where as Twain relates he was first able to negotiate a better (for Twain) arrangement for dramatizations of his books. Then the discussion turned to a more thorny matter of Bliss's work on the landmark Uniform edition. Twain then goes on to relate how the meeting then truned more confrontational, and problematic for Bliss, when the issue of his arrangement for a Popular Edition to be issued in conjunction with Newbegin: 'He said you could not publish the Popular Edition, because the Harper contract was a ban to it, that they had taken legal advice, knew their ground, & could & would enjoin.' Twain then goes on to reveal Harper's carrot, where they in essence offer double what Newbegin would pay... Quite… Read More

Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1878. First American edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam from the library of Samuel Clemens. Octavo, original decorated cloth with gilt titles to the spine and front panel. From the library of Samuel Clemens with his ownership signature and presentation inscription to the front free endpaper, "SL Clemens Hartford 1878" and "Transferred to Miss Henry G. Brooks with the kindest regards of S.L. Clemens May 1884." With scribbles and hash-marks in pencil to blank margins, presumably in Twain's hand, similar to the annotated ninth edition at the Mark Twain Archive, Elmira College. In very good condition with loss to the upper portion of the title page, small newspaper clippings laid in. Rare and desirable. The Rubaiyat is one of the most popular poems of all time. A collection of quatrains composed in the eleventh century by Persian poet and philosopher Omar Khayyam, it was first published in English-language translation by Edward Fitzgerald in 1859. Since then, its… Read More

London and New York: Harper & Brothers, 1904. Reprint. Very Good. Early 20th century reprint of Mark Twain's first published book, which was originally published in 1865. Signed and inscribed by Twain on the front pastedown: "To Lieut. Norman Woolcock, R.N.R. with the compliments & best wishes of Mark Twain, S. S. Minnetonka, July 13, 1907." Bound in publisher's origina lred cloth stamped in white, black and green. Very Good with spotting to cloth, spine ends softened and spotting to plates. Woolcock's debossed stamp to front and rear pastedown.

1907. Signed. TWAIN, Mark. Christian Science. With Notes Containing Corrections to Date. New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1907. Octavo, original red cloth. $13,500.First edition, first state, of Twain’s satirical diatribe on Christian Science—then a relatively new and rapidly growing religion in the United States—and the religion’s founder, Mary Baker Eddy, wonderfully inscribed by Twain, ""Only a very small minority can properly claim to be sane. Mark Twain,"" in answer to a question posed above in an unidentified hand: ""This book should live when the delusion is dead. Is there any danger that a majority of the race will become insane?""""A tour de force of penetrating wit and clean analysis, revealing both his skill in polemics and his disdain for obscure grandiosity and sham spirituality. The work's subject is a natural result of Twain's lifelong fascination with the supernatural"" (Le Master… Read More

Connecticut: The American Publishing Company, 1899. Autograph Edition 388/512. Full Red Crushed Morocco. Exquisite 20 volume collection of Mark Twain's works. Lacking five volumes. Autograph edition. Signed by Mark Twain on the limitation page found in Volume I of The Innocents Abroad. Additionally signed by Charles Dudley Warner on the limitation page of The Gilded Age. These volumes are in near fine condition. Very finely bound in full red crushed morocco, with gilt lettering and dentelles, with five raised bands to the spine. Top edges gilt. Rarely seen elaborate full leather pastedowns. Minor staining to some boards. Interior pages are bright and clean. Lacking volumes 5, 7, 14, 18, and 23. The titles included in this collection are: The Innocents Abroad Vols I & II - 1899; A Tramp Abroad Vols I & II; Following The Equator Vol II - 1899; Roughing It Vol II - 1899; Life on The Mississippi - 1899; The Gilded Age Vols I & II - 1899; Adventures of Tom Sawyer - 1899; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn… Read More

New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885. First Edition, Early State. 366pp. Octavo [22 cm] Original green cloth with pictorial stamping to front board and backstrip. Near fine. Profusely illustrated throughout by E.W. Kemble. Signed card laid in. Beautiful copy of this timeless work of a young boy and his journey down the Mississippi River. The great American novel. "all American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn....there was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." - Ernest Hemingway. BAL 3415.

Riverdale on the Hudson and New York City, 4 January 1902 and 29 July 1904. Letters. The Bandar Log Press envelope is quite fragile with chipping along the edges. The remaining material is Near Fine. Archive of 6 pieces including two AUTOGRAPH LETTERS SIGNED with excellent content, one letter referencing a famous passage of his and the other a poignant unpublished letter pertaining to his wife Olivia who had died the previous month. Both letters by Clemens are on small (3-1/2" x 5" and 3-1/2" x 6") pieces of mourning stationery written to John Francis "Frank" Holme, a newspaper sketch artist who covered the trials of Adolph Luetgert for the CHICAGO DAILY NEWS. Holme was also a writer and printer who founded a publishing endeavor called the Bandar Log Press. Clemens and Holme were friends, and Clemens was among those who contributed financially to the project. The earliest letter from Clemens to Holme is dated 4 January 1902 from Riverdale on the Hudson. Clemens moved his family to Riverdale from… Read More

New York: The Authors Club, 1893. First Edition. Hardcover. Bar Association Library ink stamp on the title page with an ink number on the copyright page; two other apparently nonrelated small ink stamps on the rear endpaper and pastedown. Rebacked some time ago with nearly all of the original spine laid down and the hinges reinforced with tape. Some rubbing to the binding. Contents clean and in overall Very Good condition. Thick folio (10" x 13") in publisher's full dark brown morocco leather with ornately blind- and gilt-tooled spines and boards, top edge gilt, uncut. Copy #96 of only 251 copies SIGNED by each of the 109 contributors, all noted American authors of the time, the most prominent being Mark Twain ("The Californian's Tale," the first appearance in print of this story), Theodore Roosevelt ("A Shot at a Bull Elk,"), and Andrew Carnegie ("Genius Illustrated from Burns"). This book was created as a means to raise money for a permanent home for the Author's Club, organized in 1882. Each… Read More

New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1903. Near fine.. Early 20th-century finely printed edition of the story that first brought Twain fame, exceptionally scarce with his signature on the front pastedown. Twain's first published works, as young as sixteen, were brief but hilarious retellings of events he had witnessed, a formula he would carry into his earliest professional work as a journalist out West. Invited by the famous comedian writer Artemus Ward to contribute a humorous story to one of his collections, Twain sent a piece across the country only to have it left out because it arrived too late. That piece, a riff on the well-known story in the West about a confidence man getting conned in a frog leaping contest, ended up in the newspaper NEW YORK SATURDAY PRESS instead - and took off. Newspapers across the country picked up the story and Twain became a literary sensation. In 1867, Twain published it as the leading story in his first book: in a run of only 1000 copies, it sold out within 5… Read More

New York: Gabriel Wells, 1922-27. The Definitive edition, one of 1024 numbered sets, with volume one signed by Mark Twain and Albert Bigelow Paine. The publisher states that Twain intended a definitive edition and signed 1024 single leaves in 1906 in anticipation of this edition. Octavo, 37 volumes, bound in three quarters morocco, gilt titles and tooling to the spine over marbled boards, each volume illustrated with frontispiece and plates. In very good condition.