“DISTILLATIONS OF TWAIN’S WIT AND WISDOM”
TWAIN, Mark. The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson. And the Comedy, Those Extraordinary Twins. Hartford: American Publishing, 1894. Octavo, original brown cloth gilt. Housed in custom chemise and half morocco slipcase.
First edition, first state, of the preferred American edition, published simultaneously with the English.
“A major part of Twain’s Mississippi writings. It resembles Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in being set before the Civil War in a small Missouri town modeled on Hannibal. However, it has a much more somber tone. While it contains humor, it deals frankly with small-town prejudice, slavery, miscegenation, lost birthright, degenerate aristocratic values and distorted parental love” (Rasmussen, 372). “Includes a series of brilliant epigrams, each the headpiece of a chapter, which are distillations of Twain’s wit and wisdom” (Benet, 795). With frontispiece photographic portrait of Twain and copious marginal line-cut illustrations. First state, with conjugate title page, gatherings 1-2, 4, 6-8 unsigned, frontispiece with facsimile signature 1-7/16 inches wide. BAL 3442. Johnson, 59-61. MacDonnell, 50-51. McBride, 170. Bookplate of noted book and autograph collector William F. Gable. “The story of Gable’s rise to prominence had the characteristics of a Horatio Alger success novel. He worked in a grocery store as a teenager, opened his own store at the age of 25 and at 50 owned one of the most prosperous business establishments in Pennsylvania. After hours Gable devoted himself to books and reading… Gable was a gentlemanly collector, respected by members of the book trades and by his fellow bibliophiles” (Dickinson, 131). Bibliographic pencil notation to rear pastedown.
A beautiful copy in fine condition.