Beschreibung:

Autobiography Memories and Experiences.
Boston & New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1904. 2 volumes, 8vo (220 x 145 mm). Half-titles. Photogravure frontispiece portraits of Conway, 11 plates (most portraits), 9 facsimiles of letters to Conway. Original blue cloth gilt, t.e.g. Condition : pp.139-140 in vol. II almost detached; rebacked, old spines laid down, contained within a single later cloth slip-case. Provenance : “Mark Twain” Samuel L. Clemens (signature in each volume, marginal notes to 15 pp. in vol.II). clemens’ copy of conway’s biography: "one of the most autobiographically revealing of all clemens' annotated books" (gribben), signed twice and extensively annotated. Conway (1832-1907), an abolitionist who was born in Virginia, was well-connected on both sides of the Atlantic, but perhaps most memorably served as minister at the Unitarian Chapel, South Place in London. Conway describes in some detail his "long friendship" with the Clemens: he first met them in 1872, but notes that "I first really knew them in their beautiful home in Hartford, Connecticut, where I passed some happy hours in 1876." Conway subsequently acted as Clemens's English agent for several decades. Clemens has signed the front pastedown of each volume ("SL. Clemens, Oct. 1905") and made more than 45 separate annotations (totalling some 530 words) on 30 pages. A further 58 pages are marked with marginal rules, underlinings, and other marking, chiefly in pencil. Albert Bigelow Paine specifically mentions Conway's memoir as a book that gave Clemens enjoyment. Isabel Lyon's journal for 30 November 1904 noted that "Tonight at dinner Mr. Clemens was talking of Moncure D. Conway. He is reading Conway's autobiography just published, and it made him hark back to the days in London 25 years ago" (Mark Twain Papers, quoted in Gribben).