RARE PUBLISHER'S MOROCCO BINDING 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, original dark brown 1/2 morocco gilt, marbled boards and edges, joints worn with front cover detached but present, scattered shallow abrasions to covers, spine and corners a bit rubbed, but a good, square copy with textblock tight; few areas of light foxing to first few leaves else very clean internally. New York: Charles L. Webster, 1885
first american edition. a scarce copy, one of approximately 500 copies in the rare publisher's deluxe binding. Early issue points include: frontispiece portrait in state 2 (tablecloth not visible); p. [13] in state 1 ("Him and another man"); p.57 in state 1 ("was" for "saw" line 23); p. 155 in state 1 (with the final "5" lacking); p. 283 in state 4 (vertical line on trousers); and with "Decided" on p. [9]. "The relative rarity of the cloth and leather bindings is clear. Less than two weeks before publication, Webster announced that he was binding 20,000 copies in cloth, another 2,500 in sheep, and 500 copies in three-quarter leather. The remaining 7,000 copies of the first printing were probably bound up in similar proportions. Leather copies dried out, cracked apart, and have survived in even fewer numbers than the original production numbers would promise" (MacDonnell, 35). BAL 3415; Peter Parley to Penrod, pp. 75-76.
