The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

TWAIN, Mark. [Samuel Clemens]. Illustrated by Norman Rockwell [William Safire].

Item Number: 128030

New York/London: The Heritage Press/The Nonesuch Press, 1936.

First illustrated edition of one of the great masterpieces of American literature. Octavo, bound in three quarter morocco with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, patterned endpapers, top edge gilt. Illustrated by Norman Rockwell. From the library of William Safire, although not marked. William Safire was an important American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He joined Nixon’s campaign for the 1960 Presidential race, and supported him 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.

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).