RARE PUBLISHER’S MOROCCO BINDING
280
●
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, light shelfwear and rubbing;
1
/
4
inch closed tear to lower margin of half-
title/frontis leaf, spots of soiling to portrait frontis, scattered minor foxing throughout.
New York: Charles L. Webster, 1885
[8,000/12,000]
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); and p. 283 in state
4 (vertical line on trousers).
“The relative rarity of the cloth and leather bindings is clear. Less than two weeks before publi-
cation, 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.
