[Rarebooks] FS: First Printing of HUCKLEBERRY FINN, published 128 years ago today

[Charles Agvent]

TWAIN, Mark [CLEMENS, Samuel]. ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. (TOM 
SAWYER'S COMRADE). SCENE: THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. TIME: FORTY TO FIFTY 
YEARS AGO. New York: Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885. First Edition. 
First Printing. Publisher's library binding of full sheep, the scarcest 
of the bindings for this title, here very skillfully rebacked retaining 
the original leather spine labels. With 174 illustrations by E. W. 
Kemble. BAL 3415. Earliest issue for four points of BAL's seven points 
and with McBride's point. Recent Twain scholarship convincingly 
establishes three changes from the printing plates of the first printing 
of 30,000 copies and later printings: 1) an erroneous page reference 
"88" on page 13 later changed to "87" (BAL's point 2); 2) the misprint 
"with the was" on page 57 later corrected to "with the saw" (BAL's point 
3); and 3) the misprint "Decided" on page 9 later changed to "Decides" 
(not noted by BAL). This copy has all three first printing points as 
well as most of the earliest points for BAL, lacking only the conjugate 
title page and having the conjugate page 283 with the vertical fly and 
the frontispiece with the credit to Heliotype but without the scarf. 
Laid in is a lottery ticket for the New Catholic Orphan Asylum in 
Minneapolis dated 12 September 1885. First prize was a building lot in 
Lakeview. Hinges tight. Internally a very clean copy and very unusual as 
such. Light wear to corners, faint tape stains to boards. Near Fine. 
(#003426)        $15,000.00

http://home.ptd.net/~chagvent/003426.JPG

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