Twain, Mark

A Double Barrelled Detective Story

New York, NY: Harper & Brothers, 1902. First Edition. Hardcover. The late work of imaginative detective fiction by Samuel Langhorne Clemens a/k/a Mark Twain (1835-1910), the canonical American humorist & author, featuring an appearance by Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes- an unusual & delightful cross-pollination between two literary icons. Offered here is the very first edition, first printing, published by Harper & Brothers in April 1902 as stated on copyright page. Hardcover in dark red cloth with gilt lettering & decorations on front cover & spine. The front cover features a prime, exemplary Twain quote above his facsimile signature: "We ought never do wrong when people are looking." The reader can almost see Twain winking with his mustache, cigar & all, attired in his white suit. With seven illustrations by Lucius Hitchcock, including frontispiece entitled "It's a birth-mark!" protected by fully intact attached tissue-guard sheet between it & title page. We have seen no images or references to any dust jacket for this edition, if it ever existed it is not present here. McBride, pg. 210. A unique & most entertaining volume in the immortal Twain oeuvre, in its most scarce & original form. In fair-to-good unrestored condition: Moderate rubbing, scratching & spot-staining to front, back covers & spine; moderate wear to edges & corners of covers; much more significant wear to edges & corners of spine incl. tears with moderate loss of cloth exposing binding to esp. upper & lower edges, corners of same; mild fading to gilt letters & decorations at front cover & spine; moderate rubbing & browning to side & lower edges of text block, uncut as issued; more significant but still moderate rubbing, fading & scratching to gilt, cut upper edge of same. Interior good-to-near-fine with mild browning to decorative paste-downs & endpapers; slight closed tearing at hinge-edge between front of same (but binding completely intact with no loose leaves); very light browning mostly to blank margins of page leaves; sparse, light spotting at blank margins & edges of a few of same. We note that the text presentation on each page here is quite elaborate & interesting, with red borders, decorations & and a very short capsule summation of the text in a special margin on each of same. Fair-Good. [Item #4381]

Price: $150.00