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Mark Twain, 1867
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Mark Twain, 1867
CLEMENS, Samuel Langhorne (“Mark Twain”, 1835-1910). The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Stories. Edited by John Paul [Charles Henry Webb]. New York: John A. Gray & Green for C.H. Webb, 1867.
Fine first edition of the author’s first book, first issue in the most desirable green cloth, with the leaf of ads and unbroken type on pages 21, 66 and 198. Twain’s first book is the “first important foreshadowing of crime-in-the-ascendancy in the short story ... This acknowledged classic of legend and folklore is an early example of the confidence game in fiction. If this statement surprises you, reread Mark Twain’s tale of trickery and ask yourself: When the slick stranger filled Jim Smiley’s frog, Dan’l Webster, full of quail-shot, wasn’t he really playing a clever skin game?” (Queen's Quorum 7). BAL 3310; Johnson Mark Twain 3; Seven Gables First Books 58; Zamorano Eighty 17.
12mo. One-page publisher's advertisement at front. Original green beveled cloth, with frog at lower left in gilt on front cover, and same position in blind on back cover, gilt-lettered on front cover and spine, brown coated endpapers (light rubbing to spine ends and corners, front free endpaper with corner chip and erased ownership inscription, spotting to lower endleaves). Provenance: ticket of King’s Book Store in San Francisco on lower pastedown – P.W. Prentice, San Francisco (faded contemporary ownership signature to upper pastedown) – Herschel V. Jones (1861-1928, collector and publisher; morocco bookplate).
Mark Twain, 1867
CLEMENS, Samuel Langhorne (“Mark Twain”, 1835-1910). The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Stories. Edited by John Paul [Charles Henry Webb]. New York: John A. Gray & Green for C.H. Webb, 1867.
Fine first edition of the author’s first book, first issue in the most desirable green cloth, with the leaf of ads and unbroken type on pages 21, 66 and 198. Twain’s first book is the “first important foreshadowing of crime-in-the-ascendancy in the short story ... This acknowledged classic of legend and folklore is an early example of the confidence game in fiction. If this statement surprises you, reread Mark Twain’s tale of trickery and ask yourself: When the slick stranger filled Jim Smiley’s frog, Dan’l Webster, full of quail-shot, wasn’t he really playing a clever skin game?” (Queen's Quorum 7). BAL 3310; Johnson Mark Twain 3; Seven Gables First Books 58; Zamorano Eighty 17.
12mo. One-page publisher's advertisement at front. Original green beveled cloth, with frog at lower left in gilt on front cover, and same position in blind on back cover, gilt-lettered on front cover and spine, brown coated endpapers (light rubbing to spine ends and corners, front free endpaper with corner chip and erased ownership inscription, spotting to lower endleaves). Provenance: ticket of King’s Book Store in San Francisco on lower pastedown – P.W. Prentice, San Francisco (faded contemporary ownership signature to upper pastedown) – Herschel V. Jones (1861-1928, collector and publisher; morocco bookplate).
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Heather Weintraub
Specialist, Books, Manuscripts, & Archives