Jun 19, 2014 - Sale 2355

Sale 2355 - Lot 258

Price Realized: $ 10,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 12,000
RARE BLUE CLOTH 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, light mottling to outer edges of front cover, few tiny stains on rear cover, blue cloth unusually bright and gilt unrubbed; very mild foxing to prelims and endleaves with portrait frontis and title-page clean. New York: Charles L. Webster, 1885
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Additional Details

a very bright 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 with tablecloth visible; page [9] with "Decided"; p. [13], illustration caption incorrect and p. 57 ("with the was") all 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; MacDonnell, Firsts, vol. 8, no. 7/8, 1998, p. 31.