Beschreibung:

CLEMENS, Samuel (“Mark Twain,” 1835-1910). The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885.
A lovely copy of the first American edition, in publisher’s morocco with the rare first state of the illustration on p. 283. While gathering advance subscriptions to Huckleberry Finn, traveling salesmen pitched expensively bound copies in morocco and sheep as Christmas gifts. These fine copies included an innocent illustration of the character Silas Phelps on p. 283, which showed a very slight curve at the fly of his trousers. The present copy is one of those few.
After the initial distribution of these special copies, an unknown individual defaced the plate on p. 283 with a vulgar embellishment of Silas’s genitals. By the time the altered plate was discovered though, thousands of copies had been printed. In order to avoid massive financial losses and tarnishing Twain’s reputation as a decent and moral man, each leaf depicting the explicit image was cut out and replaced with a new engraving. This new illustration eliminated all curvature (as was found in the prospectus) and replaced Silas’s fly with a straight line. As the defacement occurred only after the advance sheets were shipped to be bound, the plate in its first state only exists in the prospectus and in early copies in publisher’s morocco. First editions with the first state illustration are therefore scarce and prized by collectors. This copy with portrait frontispiece with sculptor’s name on the shoulder; State 3 of title but no priority acknowledged; State 1 of p. [13], p. 57 and p. 155; without 11 signature on p. 161; and the original first state of the illustration on p. 283. BAL 3415; Johnson, 43; Grolier American 87.
Octavo (213 x 160mm). Lithographic frontispiece by E.W. Kemble, photographic portrait of Twain by Karl Gerhardt Publisher’s half morocco gilt, marbled boards with a gilt stamped spine; marbled edges and endpapers (lightly rubbed). Custom quarter morocco slipcase. Provenance: Leigh B. Block (bookplate) – Christie's New York, 5 December 1997, lot 143.