[CLEMENS, Samuel Langhorne]. STEELE, Frederic Dorr. Three original drawings in ink and mostly black paint (some gray and other colors used) for the Mark Twain story ''Two Little Tales'' for its first appearance in The Century Magazine (London, November, 1901), sizes range from 240 x 140 mm to 315 x 140 mm (9 x 5 in. to 13 x 5 in.), on art paper, mounted on thick board, matted, with a pencilled art editor's direction on one margin, The Century Co. Art Dept. labels showing through windows at back of mats, each drawing signed ''FDS 01'' by Steele, one drawing captioned by him, with a copy of the Twain story extracted from the magazine, in a maroon cloth portfolio.

[CLEMENS, Samuel Langhorne]. STEELE, Frederic Dorr. Three original drawings in ink and mostly black paint (some gray and other colors used) for the Mark Twain story "Two Little Tales" for its first appearance in The Century Magazine (London, November, 1901), sizes range from 240 x 140 mm to 315 x 140 mm (9 x 5 in. to 13 x 5 in.), on art paper, mounted on thick board, matted, with a pencilled art editor's direction on one margin, The Century Co. Art Dept. labels showing through windows at back of mats, each drawing signed "FDS 01" by Steele, one drawing captioned by him, with a copy of the Twain story extracted from the magazine, in a maroon cloth portfolio.

Twain's tale has a story-within-a-story structure and relates to the Boer War. The dark coloration of the Steele drawings is appropriate: one of the major characters is a lowly 16-year-old cesspool cleaner, and another is Jimmy, his younger chimney-sweep friend. The drawings illustrate "Jimmy," "The Cat's-Meat Man and the Chestnut-Woman," and "These Two Lads Met One Evening About Nine." (3)