first edition
1901 · New York
by Twain, Mark
New York: [The Anti-Imperialist League] & The North American Review, 1901. First separate edition. First separate edition. 16 pp. Bound in stapled printed self-wraps. Very Good, lightly soiled and edge-nicked, horizontal crease, staples rusted with age. Mark Twain's very uncommon (in both its moral clarity and availability in the trade) rallying cry against imperialism, reprinted by the Anti-Imperialist League, of which he was the leading light.
Two issues of The North American Review included as well, bound in tasteful three-quarter morocco lettered in gilt with a special pouch in the rear that houses the aforementioned separate printing of the To the Person Sitting in Darkness. The journal's issues are the essay's first periodical appearance in the February 1901 issue (pp. 161-176) and the April 1901 issue containing Twain's reply "To My Missionary Critics" (pp. [520]-534). Other contributors include Leo Tolstoy (no slouch as an exponent of pacifism), W.D. Howells, and former president Benjamin Harrison. Front wrappers of both issues bound in; only the rear wrapper of the latter issue bound in. Binding a little sunned along top edge, wear to spine.
This essay is the famous American satirist at his most pugnacious and politically radical, opposing American imperialism at a time when the country was still a mere embryo of the World Hegemon it would become. Twain's literary executor would censor part of the essay in a later reprinting, so controversial would it prove to be. BAL 3470. Johnson p. 73. (Inventory #: 140946831)
Two issues of The North American Review included as well, bound in tasteful three-quarter morocco lettered in gilt with a special pouch in the rear that houses the aforementioned separate printing of the To the Person Sitting in Darkness. The journal's issues are the essay's first periodical appearance in the February 1901 issue (pp. 161-176) and the April 1901 issue containing Twain's reply "To My Missionary Critics" (pp. [520]-534). Other contributors include Leo Tolstoy (no slouch as an exponent of pacifism), W.D. Howells, and former president Benjamin Harrison. Front wrappers of both issues bound in; only the rear wrapper of the latter issue bound in. Binding a little sunned along top edge, wear to spine.
This essay is the famous American satirist at his most pugnacious and politically radical, opposing American imperialism at a time when the country was still a mere embryo of the World Hegemon it would become. Twain's literary executor would censor part of the essay in a later reprinting, so controversial would it prove to be. BAL 3470. Johnson p. 73. (Inventory #: 140946831)
(503) 243-2665
