Punch, Brothers, Punch! And Other Sketches by Mark Twain.

TWAIN, Mark. [Samuel L. Clemens].

$475.00

Item Number: 127364

New York: Slote, Woodman & Co., 1878.

First edition, second issue of Twain’s collection of short stories with the author’s name in facsimile autograph, undecorated cream end-papers, and second state scrap book illustration to the rear paste down. BAL 3378. Small octavo, original green cloth stamped in black with gilt titles to the spine. From the library of William Safire with his bookplate to the pastedown. William Safire was an important American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He joined Nixon’s campaign for the 1960 Presidential race, and again in 1968. After Nixon’s 1968 victory, Safire served as a speechwriter for him and Spiro Agnew. He authored several political columns in addition to his weekly column “On Language” in The New York Times Magazine from 1979 until the month of his death and authored two books on grammar and linguistics: The New Language of Politics (1968) and what Zimmer called Safire’s “magnum opus,” Safire’s Political Dictionary. Safire later served as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board from 1995 to 2004 and in 2006 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush. In very good condition.

"To understand America, read Mark Twain. No matter what new craziness pops up in America, I find it described beforehand by him He was never innocent, at home or abroad" (Garry Wills). "High and fine literature is wine," Twain once wrote, "and mine is only water; but everybody likes water." Raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Samuel Clemens, of Mark Twain, was lauded in his obituary as the "greatest humorist this country has produced." His 1885 novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is often referred to as "The Great American Novel."