ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER, THE by Twain, Mark [Clemens, S. L.]

Twain, Mark [Clemens, S. L.] THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER. Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1876. First edition, first printing. Original full sheep, black morocco label, gilt, raised bands. professionally rebacked with original pink end papers and spine label wholly intact; a tight clean copy with only some scattered fozing in text. The first printing was 5,000 copies, and by January, 1877, 9,879 copies had been printed and bound. Advance subscription orders called for a second printing before the day of publication, so even those very first buyers of this book stood only a fifty precent chance of getting a copy of the first printing. The number of copies of the first printing bound in sheep is unknown, but by 1879, 28,962 copies had been printed and bound, of which 3,680 were in the sheep binding. "For once, the natural rights of the small boy were set forth by a great writer who remembered his own childhood, when he had indeed inveigled some boys into whitewashing a fence for him, given pain-killer to his cat, teased his brother unmercifully, and continually sharpened his wits in devising ways of escaping punishment .... [this book] let fresh air into the minds of parents who had shut the door on their own childhood ..." --Grolier Hundred. Housed in a quarter morocco case. Peter Parley to Penrod, p. 43. BAL 3369. Grolier American Hundred 79.