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. Hardcover. Hinges tight. Internally a very clean copy and very unusual as such. Light wear to corners, faint tape stains to boards. Near Fine. 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: (truncated) 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. (Inventory #: 003426)