Beschreibung:

CLEMENS, Samuel Langhorne ("Mark Twain"). The Writings . Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, 1899-1907. 25 volumes, 8 o. Engraved titles, frontispieces and plates. Contemporary dark-green half morocco, gilt-lettered and -ruled on spines, top edges gilt (small scuff to spine on vol. IV, ten volumes with joints lightly rubbed). LIMITED EDITION, number 38 of 1000 sets of the "Edition de Luxe." INSCRIBED BY CLEMENS on the justification leaf in the first volume: "Truly Yours Mark Twain Oct. 23/03." Vol. I with an ALS BY CLEMENS bound in: "My Dear Kinney: Upon receipt of this note the American Publishing Co will furnish to you a cloth copy of Innocents, Roughing It & Sketches, charging the same to my account, & will send the books to you or to such address as you may name. Merry Christmas!" With a facsimile of a letter to T.S. Frisbie in vol. 5. [ Bound in to vol. 10: ] CLEMENS, Samuel L. Autograph manuscript, a page from the manuscript of The Gilded Age (1873), 1 page, 8vo (8 x 5 in.), in ink on lined stationery with stamp of "EK Mfg.Co," comprising 22 lines in ink, with several deletions and word substitutions, paginated "345" at top, bound in vol. 10 of the set described below. The text describing a meeting with Col. Seller's: "The precipitating of this casual intercourse into the more substantial form of an acquaintanceship was the work of the gentleman himself, & occurred in this wise. Meeting the two friends in the lobby one evening, he asked them to give him the time, & added: 'Excuse me, gentlemen -- strangers in St. Louis? Ah, yes - yes. From the East, perhaps? Ah, just so, just so. Eastern horn myself -- Virginia. Sellers is my name--Eschol Sellers....'" -- WARNER, Charles Dudley Autograph manuscript, a page from the manuscript of The Gilded Age , 1 page, 8vo, on stationery identical to the preceding, five lines of dialogue deleted in pencil, paginated "353" but the text continued from previous page in Clemens' hand, bound in vol.10. Comprising 22 lines in Gilder's familiar purple ink, describing Col. Sellers' hospitality, concluding with his statement "'...Never take an inferior liquor, gentlemen, not in the evening, in this climate. There. That's the stuff. My respects!'" The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (Hartford, 1873) was a collaborative attempt by Twain and Charles Dudley Warner to write a "contemporary" novel. The first novel either author attempted and their only collaboration, it was completed in the record time of three months: "With their plots staked out, Clemens and Warner began working like tunnel crews boring from opposite sides of the mountain...In general, as he [Twain] liked to say, he contributed the fact and Warner the fiction" (Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain , 1966, p. 160). (25)