A Dog’s Tale.

TWAIN, Mark. [Samuel L. Clemens].

Item Number: 133019

New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1904.

First edition of Twain’s “powerful indictment of cruelty to animals.” Octavo, original pictorial cloth, illustrated with four color plates by W.T. Smedley including tissue-guarded frontispiece. BAL 3483. Uniquely signed by Mark Twain on the pastedown, “Let us save the to-morrows for work. Mark Twain.” In fine condition. Housed in a custom silk slipcase.

"My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a Presbyterian." So begins Mark Twain's short story, both sentimental and polemical, about animal welfare. "First published in the Christmas issue of Harper's Monthly Magazine (December 1903), A Dog's Tale… was written largely to please daughter Jean, who had been outspoken in support of anti-vivisectionist causes… Written in the tradition of Aesop's fables, A Dog's Tale… remains a powerful indictment of cruelty to animals," as well as a scathing attack on such targets as misleading language, the institution of slavery and science exercised without compassion (LeMaster & Wilson, 223-24). It is also "a tribute to Mark Twain's mother, who—like the narrator's mother—reputedly sent Mark Twain into the world with an oath to behave properly" (Rasmussen, 113-14). It was "apparently printed from the plates of Harper's Magazine" (BAL 3479), where it was first published. Harper & Brothers published the first (separate) American edition in September of that year (BAL 3483).