THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY, AND OTHER SKETCHES

Book Description

New York: C. H. Webb, 1867. First Edition. blue cloth. A bright, spectacular copy of his scarce first book. BAL 3310. The first printing of Mark Twain's first book, published in an edition of only 1000 copies, with the inserted ad leaf before the title page and undamaged type in folio 21 and in the last lines of pages 66 and 198. In the traditionally preferred blue cloth with the traditionally preferred gilt frog in the center of the front cover. Twain's presentation copy to his mother was in blue cloth. A very faded signature of a previous owner at the top of the title page and a small blue ink stamp of the same name at the blank top of the dedication page. The text is quite clean with one page with a very short, hardly noticeable marginal repair. The cloth is bright and clean. The hinges have been professionally strengthened with no visible sign of the work ever having been done, and the spine has been neatly and expertly relined to repair a fingernail-sized chip at the head and fraying at the base. The result is quite stunning with the work visible only under close scrutiny. Many Twain collectors wait for that elusive, fine, unrestored copy to add to their collections. Perhaps the best known collector of Twain in the latter half of the twentieth century admired this copy but held out for an unrestored copy and went to his grave without acquiring this title. The decision is certainly one of the toughest a serious collector has to make and one in which, if he is savvy, he will take all factors into consideration.

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