?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 12,000
RARE BLUE CLOTH COPY TWAIN, MARK. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Lithographic frontispiece and text illustrations by E.W. Kemble, photographic portrait frontispiece of the bust of Mark Twain by Karl Gerhardt. Small 4to, publisher's pictorial blue cloth stamped in black and gilt, very shallow surface impression on front cover, spine slightly dulled, minimal rubbing to spine head; small ink ownership signature on front free endpaper, else internally clean but for some occasional minor foxing on a few preliminaries; preserved in custom cloth chemise within 1/4 morocco gilt slipcase. New York: Charles L. Webster, 1885
a superior copy of the first american edition of twain's masterpiece in the elusive blue cloth. "Blue cloth copies are at least 20 times as rare as green cloth copies" (MacDonnell, Firsts, vol. 8, no. 7/8, 1998). "All modern literature comes from one book by Mark Twain. It's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since" (Ernest Hemingway, The Green Hills of Africa). Early issue points include: frontispiece portrait BAL state 2; page [9] with "Decided"; p. [13] with illustration caption incorrect and p. 57 ("with the was") both first states; p. 155 state 3 (with the final 5 extending below the line); and p. 283 state 3. BAL 3415; Peter Parley to Penrod, pp. 75-76.
