Books

London: Chatto and Windus, 1880. First Edition, first single volume printing of the English edition, with the August ads, the earliest of the issue criteria. Illustrated with a facsimile page of manuscript from Twain’s notebooks. 8vo, publisher’s original red cloth, decorated in black and gilt on the spine and upper cover, patterned end-leaves. xxiii, [2], 564 pp. + 32 ads. A very bright, handsome and beautifully preserved copy with just a touch of mellowing to the binding, a very clean and solid copy. THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION ISSUED IN ONE VOLUME. The seemingly formless form of Twain’s most typical work is both that of storytelling and travel; for like storytelling, travel is made up of episodic events and encounters.” In A TRAMP ABROAD, Twain is discovering himself as a new man in a new place in time, “just as in ROUGHING IT, in its drive West, reveals its protagonist in a series of apprenticeships until he finds himself to be none other that the…