First Edition, First State in Original Cloth
Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson and the Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins.
Hartford, Conn. American Publishing Company, 1894.
With Marginal Illustrations. Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, 1894.
First American edition, BAL first state (with sheets bulking about 11/8 inches, and with title leaf conjugate with leaf <1>3). Octavo. [6], 15-432 pp. Frontispiece portrait (with facsimile autograph 1 7/16 inches wide). Title-page printed in red and black.
Original brown cloth decoratively stamped in black and lettered in gilt on front cover and spine. Edges sprinkled brown. Original drab gray endpapers. Some mild wear to cloth, mainly at edges and head and tail of spine. Previous owner's ink signature on front free endpaper. Some light toning. Some of the illustrations are lightly hand-colored. Overall a very good copy.
“In this book the author returns to his native Mississippi River of before the War with its background of a few wealthy slave holding families. The story revolves about the changing of infants in the cradle and a final uncovering of the act by the protagonist, Pudd’nhead Wilson, by means of fingerprinting” (Johnson).
BAL 3442. McBride, p. 170. Johnson, Twain, pp. 59-61.
HBS 67941.
$400.
Price: $400.00
Item #67941