Life on the Mississippi

Mark Twain [Samuel L. Clemens]. Life on the Mississippi. New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1888. First U. S. edition (following the Chatto & Windus edition published in London), Webster issue with a cancel title-leaf, first state of the text with the urn tailpiece on page 441 and the illustration caption on page 443 reading "The St. Louis Hotel." Octavo (8.5 x 5.75 inches; 217 x 145 mm.). [2, blank], 624, [2, blank] pages. Numerous full-page and in-text illustrations. Publisher's brown cloth, spine lettered and stamped in gilt and ruled in black, front board stamped in gilt and black; all edges of the text block trimmed; floral endpapers, flyleaves. Spine slightly leaning; spine ends pushed, corners bumped; rear joint, crown and extremities worn; covers lightly rubbed. Front hinge cracked but holding firm; a few interior gatherings very firm (probably artificially secured, definite binding irregularities), some gatherings a little sprung, one trimmed short; private library bookplate, partially removed. About very good. Reissued with the Charles Webster imprint after James Osgood went bankrupt; reissues usually found with intermediate or second state of text. BAL 3411 (Osgood issue). Queen's Quorum p. 45 ("Mark Twain deserves credit for the authentic first use of identification by fingerprints in both the short story and the novel: first in 1883, in Chapter XXXI in Life on the Mississippi..."). (#10094).