Details
[CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE]. [BUNYAN, JOHN. The Pilgrim's Progress in the Canton Vernacular. Canton, China, 1870-71]. 2 vols. in one, tall, narrow 8vo, tan suede-backed boards, original wrappers bound in, fore-corners a bit worn, horizontal tear across title-page of vol. 1 and a text leaf, some browning to leaves. Illustrated. FROM MARK TWAIN'S LIBRARY, INSCRIBED BY HIM (facetiously?) on the front wrapper in blue ink: "Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progess. Part I. Sent from Bangkok Siam by H.R.H. the Rajah of Ambong and Morocco in the Island of Borneo. The prince is a full-blooded Yankee, and was born in Boston. Hartford, March 1882"; on the rear wrapper in black ink Twain has written "Part II." Gribben, p. 112. Gribben records five editions (including one in Hawaiian) in Clemens' library. He notes (top of p. 112, for an English language edition of The Pilgrim's Progess) that "Twain showed a close knowledge of Bunyan's work and familiarity with his life...Twain [once] told [William Dean] Howells he 'would rather be damned to John Bunyan's heaven than read James' The Bostonians...'"
Provenance: Samuel Langhorne Clemens sale, New York, Anderson, February 1911, lot 56 (with two sale labels pasted in attesting that this book is from Clemens's Library, each signed by the literary executor Albert Bigelow Paine).
Provenance: Samuel Langhorne Clemens sale, New York, Anderson, February 1911, lot 56 (with two sale labels pasted in attesting that this book is from Clemens's Library, each signed by the literary executor Albert Bigelow Paine).