PBA Galleries

366 pp., blank. Double frontispiece (including portrait), with tissue-guard, plus numerous wood engravings throughout. (8vo) original decorative green cloth, stamped and lettered in gilt and black. First American Edition, with the earliest possible combination of  issue points in a cloth-bound copy.

First edition of the quintessential classic of 19th century American literature. The present copy exhibits all of the earliest issue points to be found in cloth bound copies, i.e.: title leaf is a cancel with copyright notice dated 1884 (second state overall, but the first state was only seen in a prospectus and set of advance sheets); the illustration captioned "Him and another Man" [p.13] listed as p.88 (first state); 11th line from bottom of p.57 reads "...with the was..." (first state); p. 283 is a cancel, with corrected engraving (third state overall, but the earliest known state in cloth-bound copies), the final 5 in the numeration of page 155 is lacking (first state); leaf 23-8 is present as a blank, first state of the frontispiece of Twain's bust (imprint of Heliotype with tablecloth visible and without sculptor's name on shoulder). BAL 3415.