Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

New York: Charles L. Webster & Co, 1885. First edition. Calf. Fine. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE OF TWAIN'S MASTERPIECE. IN FINE BINDING BY BAYNTUN. “Early in 1885 Twain's firm—set up as Charles L. Webster and Company—released its first book, using the subscription channel. The opening (‘You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,' but that ain't no matter.’) and the closing (‘But I reckon I got to light for the Territory ahead of the rest because aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can't stand it. I been there before.’) are the most explicated set of sentences in world literature. Before Adventures of Huckleberry Finn proved to be a classic that escapes its author's definition of ‘a book which people praise and don't read,’ it pleased few literary critics, particularly not the guardians of uplift. It challenged reticence about backwoods squalor and common ignorance, and it frustrated pious clichés... Yet tens of millions of readers, even of translations that lose not only the crosscutting of the vernacular but the idiomatic lilt, have delighted in its onrushing humor of character and phrasing, its escapist tableaux, its positive warmth where deserved, and its myth of inborn virtue... along with its sardonic profiles of meanness and greed. The original plates added the minstrel-show level of the illustrations that Twain supervised” (American National Biography).

Huckleberry Finn “changed the course of juvenile literature in the United States, presenting the first deeply felt portrayal of boyhood. It is a classic of American realism both for this portrayal and for Twain’s depiction of the pre-Civil War South, especially through his use of dialect” (Britannica).

With the three important first state points: 1: p. [9], “...Huck Decided to Leave...” is listed as part of the heading for Chapter VI (later changed to "Decides"); 2: p. [13], “Him and another Man” is wrongly listed as at page 88 (later corrected to page 87); 3: p. 57, “...with the was...”, later corrected to “...with the saw...”.

TWAIN, MARK. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Charles L. Webster, 1885. First edition, first issue. Octavo, early 20th-century polished green calf by Bayntun with elaborately gilt-decorated spine, original cloth covers (front, rear, and spine) bound-in; marbled endpapers, gilt dentelles, all edges gilt. Gift inscription on front free endpaper. Only the most trivial wear. A fine copy. (Inventory #: 2910)