THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN

New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine. First edition, later issue, with a printed facsimile of the suppressed illustration on p.283 laid in. Hilariously picaresque, epic in scope, alive with the poetry and vigor of the Antebellum South, Mark Twain's story about a young boy and his journey down the Mississippi was the first great novel to speak in a truly American voice. As Ernest Hemingway observed, "all American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn... there was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." Large octavo: 366 p. with 174 illustrations by E.W. Kemble. Original green cloth binding, with pictorial gilt and black stamping. Aside from some light dust staining to the top edge, this copy is as fine and fresh as the day it was printed. Housed in custom marbled paper over green morocco clamshell box. Provenance: from the Publishers' Bookbindings collection of Ellen K. Morris and Edward S. Levin. (Inventory #: 77108)