Estate / Collection: The Collection of Erica Jong and Ken Burrows

TWAIN, MARK (SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade). New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885. First American edition, first printing with the points listed below, inscribed by Twain on the front paste-down with an autograph quotation from Pudd'nhead Wilson; and a second (later) inscription by Twain's friend Poultney Bigelow on the front free end paper. Publisher's green pictorial cloth, housed in a leather-backed slipcase. 8 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches; frontispiece portrait, 366 pp. The cloth with some rubbing, restoration at the extremities, the hinges repaired, slight stain to the fore-edge of the half title and the first few leaves, card of the Freeman Hotel with a (printed) Twain quote laid to the first blank, some marginal finger soiling and occasional edgewear.

The inscription from Twain reads "Mr. Charles Aubrey Slosson his book./ Consider well the proportions of things: / it is better to be a young June-bug / than an old bird of paradise. / Truly yours / Mark Twain / Dec. 05." That of Poultney Bigelow is dated October 10, 1946 "Don't go to College if you seek / Knowledge of humanity - in my case / I learned to row and box and / sipped at the fountain of Youth-- / so be warned by your friend / Poultney Bigelow / October 10 1946 / at Malden on Hudson."
This copy of Huckleberry Finn has all three substantive points required for the first printing of the published book: Him and another man is listed at p. 88 (the 1st state), later corrected to p. 87 (second state); p. 57 has the reading "with the was" (the 1st state), later corrected to "with the saw" (second state); and p. 9 bears the misprint "Decided" (the first state), which was duly corrected to "Decides" (second state).
Of the traditional issue points, the present copy has p. 155 with the final 5 extending below the first two numbers; p. 161 is without the signature mark; and p. 283 is a cancel, as in all clothbound copies. The frontispiece has the imprint of the Heliotype Printing Co. and the tablecloth clearly visible (1st state), but the states of the frontispiece were inserted into copies at random, and so have no bearing on priority. BAL 3415; Grolier, 100 American /Kevin MacDonell "Huck Finn among this Issue-Mongers" Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine Volume 8, Number 9 (September 1998) pp. 28-35. The inscription of this copy is noted by David Fears in Mark Twain Day by Day, now a digital resource, see https://daybyday.marktwainstudies.com/category/volume-4/page/2/