The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

TWAIN, Mark [Samuel L. Clemens].

Item Number: 132577

Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1876.

First edition, first printing, first state (with “THE” on half title in 10-point rather than 14-point type) of one of the great masterpieces of American literature. Octavo, original blue cloth, peach endpapers, top edge gilt, illustrations in text by True Williams and others, printed on wove paper, with preliminary matter paginated [I]-XVI and front and rear triple flyleaves of laid paper. BAL 3369. Johnson, 27-30. MacDonnell, 39-40. MacBride, 40. In very good condition with some light rubbing to the cloth. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. A very sharp example.

Popular and controversial at the time of publication in 1876, Mark Twain’s masterpiece The Adventures of Tom Sawyer has been adapted into dozens of film, television and theatrical productions. The quintessential tale of American boyhood established one of the most memorable characters in American literature who appeared in three later sequels including Twain’s other most notable work, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. “The first novel Mark Twain wrote without a co-author, Tom Sawyer is also his most clearly autobiographical novel enlivened by extraordinary and melodramatic events, it is otherwise a realistic depiction of the experiences, people and places that Mark Twain knew as a child” (Rasmussen, 459).