Search Results: huckleberry finn

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

Original half dark brown morocco gilt. Portrait frontispiece with sculptor's name on the shoulder, State 3 of title but no priority acknowledged, State 1 of p. [13], p. 57 and p. 155, without 11 signature on p. 161, and the original first state of the illustration on p. 283. Light wear. Near fine.

First American edition, in publisher's morocco with the rare first state of the illustration on p. 283.
While gathering advance subscriptions to Huckleberry Finn, traveling salesmen offered not only copies in cloth bindings but also deluxe leather bound copies such as the present example. The first copies printed were sent off to be put in those time-consuming bindings.
Soon thereafter, as printing progressed, an unknown individual defaced the plate on p. 283 with an engraving of a penis at Uncle Silas's crotch. Thousands of copies were printed before the altered plate was discovered. Each of those offending leaves was cut out and replaced with leaf featuring the re-engraved illustration. This new… Read More

New York: Charles L. Webster and Company,, 1885. All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn" - Ernest Hemingway First US edition, first printing, of one of the great classics of both American and children's literature, an exceptional, bright copy. This copy has the relevant first printing points: at p. 9 the misprint "Decided" for "Decides", at p. 13 the erroneous page reference "88" for the plate "Him and Another Man", and at p. 57, line 23, the misprint "with the was" for "with the saw". These are the only points to distinguish between the first two printings; other textual variants between copies are due to the use of multiple plates and have no relevance for priority. This copy has the first state frontispiece with the table cloth visible and unsigned on the finished edge of the bust, the second state title leaf with altered copyright page (as always save for advance copies; here integral, also found as a cancel - copies already sewn had a leaf… Read More

New York: Charles L. Webster, 1885. First American Edition. Publisher’s sheep; this is an early copy with the following points: p. , “Him and another man” incorrectly listed as at p.88; page 57, “..with the was...” as opposed to “...with the saw...”; page 283 is in the first state (only early prospectuses and leather bound copies have the engraving on that soon to be suppressed and replaced plate in this original state); frontispiece in state 2 (of no significance). Outer joint of the front board splitting; some spotting; owner’s contemporary signature and signature stamp; still good to very good; in a custom quarter-morocco clamshell box.

New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885. First American edition. Near Fine. A solid, Nearly Fine copy of the book, with no repairs or restoration. Spine gilt a bit dulled and slight rubbing at the spine ends and corners. Cloth generally fresh and bright and in excellent condition internally. Contemporary gift inscription on the front paste-down dated "May 18, 1885." With all three generally accepted first printing points and the frontis bust of Twain in the first state. A copy in Fine condition made $52,920 at Christies in 2023. Housed in custom quarter-leather clamshell over marbled boards. Recounting the adventures of Huckleberry Finn as he flees his own abusive father and aids Jim in his escape from slavery, Twain's novel has been praised for its "distinctly American voice," putting at its center two common people who find an uncommon friendship. "Today perhaps the novel's greatest significance lies in its conception of childhood, as a time of risk, discovery, and adventure. Huck is no… 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

New York: Charles L. Webster, 1885. First American Edition. Publisher’s sheep; this is an early a copy with the following points: p. , “Him and another man” incorrectly listed as at p.88; page 57, “..with the was...” as opposed to “...with the saw...”; page 283 is in the second state (only early prospectuses and leather bound copies have the engraving on that soon to be suppressed and replaced plate in this original state); frontispiece in state 2 (of no significance). A very good copy.

New York: Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885. First Edition. Hardcover. Hinges tight. Internally a very clean copy and very unusual as such. Light wear to corners, faint tape stains to boards. Near Fine. First Printing. Publisher's library binding of full sheep, the scarcest of the bindings for this title, here very skillfully rebacked retaining the original leather spine labels. With 174 illustrations by E. W. Kemble. BAL 3415. Earliest issue for four points of BAL's seven points and with McBride's point. Recent Twain scholarship convincingly establishes three changes from the printing plates of the first printing of 30,000 copies and later printings: 1) an erroneous page reference "88" on page 13 later changed to "87" (BAL's point 2); 2) the misprint "with the was" on page 57 later corrected to "with the saw" (BAL's point 3); and 3) the misprint "Decided" on page 9 later changed to "Decides" (not noted by BAL). This copy has all three first printing points as well as most of the earliest points… Read More

New York: Charles L. Webster and Company. 1885. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. Very Good. Contains the three first printing points: "Huck Decided to Leave" on p. 9; "Him and another Man" listed on p. 87; and "with the was" on p. 57. Photogravure frontispiece of Karl Gerhardt's portrait bust of Clemens, illustrations after E. W. Kemble in the text throughout. Both hinges starting. Rubbing along panel edges. Bumping at panel corners and spine crown. Chipping at spine heel. Light staining on rear end page and both sides of FEP. .

New York: Charles L. Webster, 1885. First American edition. Illustrated by E.W. Kemble. 366 pp. 1 vols. Square 8vo. Publisher's deluxe half brown morocco and marbled boards, gilt spine with raised bands, rubbed around the edges, corners, and marbled paper; marbled edges and endpapers. Some minor foxing and a few pages with toning. First American edition. Illustrated by E.W. Kemble. 366 pp. 1 vols. Square 8vo. Publisher's Deluxe Morocco Binding. First edition of Twain's enduring classic of boyhood, in the deluxe publisher's half morocco binding - at the time of publication the rarest and most expensive of the various publisher's bindings. The first edition comprised 30,000 copies; the publisher Webster announced that 20,000 would be bound in green or blue cloth ($2.75), 2,500 in a sheepskin library binding ($3.25), and 500 in this deluxe half morocco binding ($4.25). The remaining copies were perhaps bound in the same proportion. In his "Huck Finn among the Issue-Mongers," Kevin MacDonnell has… Read More

New York: Charles Webster, 1885. First edition. Very good plus.. First printing, in the most uncommon form: bound in the publisher's full sheep. Twain often had ambitious plans for the publication of his books, as well as the ability to execute them through his own publishing firm, Charles L. Webster and Company, run by his nephew-in-law. Anticipating brisk Christmas-season sales, they planned four bindings for this informal sequel to TOM SAWYER: one in green pictorial cloth (the most common); one in blue pictorial cloth (to match TOM SAWYER); and two deluxe bindings: half morocco (goatskin) and sheep. Of the four bindings, the fewest copies were bound in sheep, estimated at around 2500 copies - though "they rarely survive in numbers proportional to the number that were originally bound" (Mac Donnell). The sheep copies were also among the earliest bound: most of the presentation copies from Twain are found in sheep. Because sheepskin notoriously takes wear more easily than other binding leathers… Read More

New York: Charles L. Webster, 1885. First edition. First Issue. With 174 black and white illustrations by E.W. Kemble. Large 8vo, original publisher's sheep binding with the red and black lettering labels on the spine. It is estimated that only 2500 copies were issued in this binding. 366 pp. A very pleasing and handsome copy. Light, expert and unobtrusive refurbishment to the joints. FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT AND GREATEST BOOKS IN AMERICAN LITERATURE. A very handsome copy with the following earliest setting states as listed by BAL: "Him and another Man" is listed at page 88, BAL's first state; page 57, eleventh line from the bottom reads "...with the was...," BAL's first state; page 155 with final 5 “stamped in” by hand (see Underhill), and matching the original font in the setting of the page number (no priority, occurring randomly in all three states independent of other major signs of first printing sheets, but this setting seems to appear least often); the… Read More

Hartford, Ct, 1884. 26 lines, in pencil, on both sides of a single sheet. 1 vols. 22.5 x 14 cm. (9 x 5-1⁄2 in.). Fine condition, in cloth folder. 26 lines, in pencil, on both sides of a single sheet. 1 vols. 22.5 x 14 cm. (9 x 5-1⁄2 in.). Clemens Promises Chatto 'Early Sheets' of Huck Finn. Important letter from Samuel Clemens to his British publisher Andrew Chatto at Chatto & Windus - two brief pages dense with early instructions regarding international aspects of the forthcoming publication of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Hartford Apl 1/84 Dear Mr. Chatto: Good - that settles Hughes! Now you can settle Tauchnitz - I enclose him. Chas L. Webster (my nephew by marriage and future publisher) will write to you about this time. I will send him your present letter so that he may take note of the early sheets suggestion. We can easily send the early sheets if we don't forget it, for we shall have this book in type & printed many months before we issue it. I shall secure Canadian copyright.… Read More

New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885.

New York: Charles L. Webster, 1885. First Edition, First Issue of Mark Twain’s masterpiece. Octavo, blue pictorial cloth binding. With the armorial bookplate of book collector L.M. Kaufman designed by Artemis. A 19th Century vintage ownership inscription from Los Angeles, California on front free endpaper. Very good tight copy. Enclosed in a gilt-stamped morocco and cloth slipcase. Some excellent reinforcement at extremities by an expert book conservationist. Subscribers who had already purchased Tom Sawyer, and wanted a matching binding, were invited to request a blue cloth binding for Huckleberry Finn instead of the publisher’s original green. This is one of those blue bindings, twenty times more rare than the green. Copies were assembled rather haphazardly by the printer and there is yet to be full agreement among bibliographers as to the priority of some of them. With the following B.A.L. first issue points: page 9 with “Decided” remaining uncorrected to “Decides”; page 13… Read More

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,… Read More

Charles Webster, 1885 sheepskin Binding, in lovely clamshell, binding is restored,and rebacked,following earliest setting states as listed by BAL: "Him and another Man" is listed at page 88, BAL's first state; page 57, eleventh line from the bottom reads ".with the was.," BAL's first state; page 155 with final 5 "stamped in" by hand (see Underhill), and matching the original font in the setting of the page number (no priority, occurring randomly in all three states independent of other major signs of first printing sheets, but this setting seems to appear least often); the portrait frontispiece is in BAL's first state, "heliotype" imprint on the portrait frontispiece, title page with 1884 copyright on verso, p.9: the heading for Chapter 6 reads "Decided" (later corrected to "Decides"), p.143: "I" in "Col." (line 1) missing and "b" in "body" (line 7) broken, p. 161: signature mark… 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.

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,… Read More

New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885. 1st Edition. Original cloth. Octavo. 366 pages. Very Good+. Bound in original dark green cloth over boards with spine and upper board stamped in black and gilt. Some rubs and minor fading to cloth covers, a few shallow bumps to board fore corners and spine ends. Hinges not cracked. Housed custom cloth and board folder in half morocco slipcase.. A very nice first edition of one of the most important books in American literature. Hemingway believed that "American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." This copy has the important issue points at pages (13), 57, and 143. A very handsome copy.