Clemens, Samuel Langhorne | A fine, bright copy of Huckleberry Finn in green cloth

Clemens, Samuel Langhorne

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade) … By Mark Twain. New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885

8vo (216 x 165 mm). Frontispiece and 173 text illustrations by E. W. Kemble, photogravure plate of a portrait bust of Clemens by Karl Gerhardt (BAL state 1), title-leaf a cancel with copyright notice dated 1884. Publisher's pictorial green cloth, stamped in gilt and black, light peach endpapers, plain edges; minor scuffing to edges, otherwise a fine, bright copy. Slipcase.

First edition, early issue of one of the Great American Novels.

"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." Ernest Hemingway, The Green Hills of Africa, 1935.

The UK first edition of Huckleberry Finn was issued six months before this first American edition, in red cloth. The American edition was issued in green and blue cloth, with a small number bound in leather, in February 1885. Green cloth is most frequently seen.

REFERENCE:

BAL 3415; Grolier, American 87; Johnson 43–50