The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
TWAIN, Mark (Samuel L. Clemens).
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Rare Original Publishers Morocco, first printing, first state, of one of the Masterpieces of American literature, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1876.
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Item Number: 103542
Rare first American edition, second issue of one of the great masterpieces of American literature. One of only 200 copies produced in the original publisher’s deluxe binding. Octavo, original publisher’s three quarters morocco with gilt titles and tooling to this spine, all edges gilt, wood-engraved frontispiece and numerous illustrations in text by True Williams and others, 4-page publisher’s advertisements at rear. (BAL, 3369; Johnson, 27-30; MacDonnell, 39-40; MacBride, 40). This first American edition was issued six months after Chatto and Windus’ London edition. In very good condition. Bookplate to the pastedown. Rare and desirable.
Popular and controversial at the time of publication in 1876, Mark Twain’s masterpiece The Adventures of Tom Sawyer has been adapted into dozens of film, television and theatrical productions. The quintessential tale of American boyhood established one of the most memorable characters in American literature who appeared in three later sequels including Twain’s other most notable work, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. “The first novel Mark Twain wrote without a co-author, Tom Sawyer is also his most clearly autobiographical novel enlivened by extraordinary and melodramatic events, it is otherwise a realistic depiction of the experiences, people and places that Mark Twain knew as a child” (Rasmussen, 459).
