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Life on the Mississippi

Lot 156
15.06.2023 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
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$ 52 920
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
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ID 967688
Lot 156 | Life on the Mississippi
Estimate value
$ 20 000 – 30 000
Life on the Mississippi

Mark Twain, 1883

CLEMENS, Samuel (“Mark Twain,” 1835-1910). Life on the Mississippi. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1883. [With:] The Suppressed Chapter of “Life on the Mississippi.” N.p., n.d. [c.1931].



Presentation copy of the first edition, first state, inscribed to friend Edwin Pond Parker: “with kindest regards of Mark Twain,” with a rare copy of the suppressed chapter celebrating the end of slavery. The first state features the tail-piece on p. 441 of Twain and an urn marked “M.T.” engulfed by flames, which his wife thought “morbid” and requested be removed, and the illustration on p. 443 mis-captioned “St. Louis Hotel.” Chapter 31 contains the first use of fingerprints to solve a crime in fiction, described by Colin Wilson as "a remarkable anticipation of a scientific discovery that was then known to less than half a dozen men." See the illustration on p. 346 for an illustration of the thumbprints used to solve the crime. See Queen's Quorum, p.45 (note).



Edwin Pond Parker (1836-192) was a clergyman and longtime friend of the author. A member of the Friday Night Club, Pond Parker contributed to the Hartford Courant wherein appeared his favorable review of Clemens’s The Prince and the Pauper in 1881. His son, Edwin Pond Parker II, was the first husband of well-known poet, satirist, and screenwriter Dorothy Parker (1893-1967).



The suppressed Chapter 48 has appeared only five times at auction according to RBH. It was removed because it was seen as offensive to the white Southern book buyer, due to Twain’s critique of racial and political injustice in the South following the abolition of slavery. Forgotten until after Twain’s death, it was rediscovered circa 1910. “During the chapter’s journey to its last resting-place in a famous collection, a copy of it was made without a ‘by your leave’… and this petty piracy resulted in the production of a little printed leaflet, which is at present fluttering through the book-collecting world commanding a fictious price” (Ticknor). BAL 4111; BAL 3519; Johnson, 41-43. See Colin and Damon Wilson's Written in Blood (2003) and Caroline Ticknor, “Mark Twain’s Missing Chapter” in The Bookman xxxix, (May, 1914).



Octavo (220 x 138mm). Wood-engraved frontispiece, plates, and numerous in-text illustrations (thumbed, minor stains, about 5 leaves with repairs to blank edges­). Original brown cloth stamped with black and gold, the front cover with a gilt stamped image of a “roustabout” on a bale in the upper left; spine gilt stamped, light brownish-grey endpapers (neatly rebacked preserving original spine and endpapers); modern brown quarter morocco box and chemise with suppressed chapter laid in: bifolium (215 x 140mm), in a modern brown chemise. No. 116 of 250.

Artist:Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
Auction house category:Printed books
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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15.06.2023
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