Books and Manuscripts

Twain, Mark (Samuel L. Clemens)
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
New York: Charles L. Webster & Company, 1889. First edition (earliest state with “S” ornament below illustration on p. 59). 8vo. 575, (1), (2, ads) pp. With an inscribed note, signed by Twain, mounted on verso of frontispiece: “Truly yours / Mark Twain / Hartford, May ‘89.” Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece and numerous plates throughout. Publisher’s pictorial green cloth, stamped in blue-gray, black, and in gilt, spine ends and corners worn; all edges trimmed; patterned endpapers; front and rear hinges split; text block dropping; old fold of inscribed slip separating at bottom, concealing a contemporary ownership inscription in green ink; offsetting in pp. XIV-XV; light thumb smudging on title-page, light wear along edges of same; small soiling in upper fore-edge of pp. 58-59; Twain postage stamp mounted on recto of first free leaf. BAL 3429

A handsome first edition of Twain's satirical novel, with an inscribed note by him mounted at front.