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細節
CLEMENS, Samuel L. (“Mark Twain”). Life on the Mississippi. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1883.
First edition, first state, of this anecdotal travel narrative, containing an autobiographical account of Clemens’s childhood experiences, including his reminiscences of his days as a steamboat pilot, as well as a history of the river. BAL’s first state, with the tail-piece on p. 441 depicting an urn, flames and the head of Twain, and the caption on p. 443 reading "The St. Louis Hotel.” A particularly fine and bright copy.
8vo. Wood-engraved frontispiece, plates and numerous wood-engraved illustrations in text. (Small stain on a few preliminaries, else very clean.) Original brown decorated cloth, front cover and spine blocked in black and gold; cloth slipcase. Laid-in is the 4-pp. leaflet comprising “The Suppressed Chapter of ‘Life on the Mississippi,” one of 250 numbered copies. BAL 3411 and 3519 (Suppressed Chapter); Johnson, pp. 41-43.
“Life on the Mississippi is really two books combined. The first twenty-one chapters are his early impressions of the great river. ‘Old Times on the Mississippi,’ written in 1875 is here reprinted with the balance of the book, chapter twenty-two to the end, being his story of his trip down the river as an honored guest” (Johnson, p. 43).
Chapter 31 contains the first use of fingerprints to solve a crime in fiction, described by Colin Wilson as "a remarkable anticipation of a scientific discovery that was then known to less than half a dozen men." See the illustration on p. 346 for an illustration of the thumbprints used to solve the crime. See Queen's Quorum, p.45 (note).
First edition, first state, of this anecdotal travel narrative, containing an autobiographical account of Clemens’s childhood experiences, including his reminiscences of his days as a steamboat pilot, as well as a history of the river. BAL’s first state, with the tail-piece on p. 441 depicting an urn, flames and the head of Twain, and the caption on p. 443 reading "The St. Louis Hotel.” A particularly fine and bright copy.
8vo. Wood-engraved frontispiece, plates and numerous wood-engraved illustrations in text. (Small stain on a few preliminaries, else very clean.) Original brown decorated cloth, front cover and spine blocked in black and gold; cloth slipcase. Laid-in is the 4-pp. leaflet comprising “The Suppressed Chapter of ‘Life on the Mississippi,” one of 250 numbered copies. BAL 3411 and 3519 (Suppressed Chapter); Johnson, pp. 41-43.
“Life on the Mississippi is really two books combined. The first twenty-one chapters are his early impressions of the great river. ‘Old Times on the Mississippi,’ written in 1875 is here reprinted with the balance of the book, chapter twenty-two to the end, being his story of his trip down the river as an honored guest” (Johnson, p. 43).
Chapter 31 contains the first use of fingerprints to solve a crime in fiction, described by Colin Wilson as "a remarkable anticipation of a scientific discovery that was then known to less than half a dozen men." See the illustration on p. 346 for an illustration of the thumbprints used to solve the crime. See Queen's Quorum, p.45 (note).