8vo. Original brown beveled cloth with gilt frog at the lower left corner of the front cover, blind impression of the frog on rear cover, gilt-lettered on front cover and spine, brown coated endpapers (wear to spine ends and fore-corners, joints a bit rubbed); folding case. Provenance: Capt. Chasley to; Capt. W.K. Mansfield (gift inscription, Grand Rapids, May 1869).

FIRST EDITION, second issue, lacking the ad leaf before title. Queen notes that 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, pp.3-9; McBride, 2.