Punch, Brothers, Punch! and Other Sketches
Twain, Mark. New York, Slote, Woodman & Co., 1878

First edition, with Twain’s name in Roman on title page versus facsimile autograph of second edition; first state of rear wrapper with illustration of scrapbook measuring 2-7/8x2”. BAL 3378.
___________________________________________________
Conductor, when you receive a fare,
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!
A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare,
A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare,
A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare,
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!

CHORUS
Punch, brothers! punch with care!
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!

Author: Twain, Mark
Title: The American Claimant
Place: New York
Publisher: Charles L. Webster
Date: 1892

Illustrated from drawings by Dan Beard. 8x5½, decorative grayish-green cloth, lettered in gilt. First Edition.

Twain originally intended to dictate the entire work and fill over a hundred Edison cylinders, but later decided to give up the idea. BAL 3434.

Concerning Cats: Two Tales
Mark Twain. San Francisco, Book Club of America, 1959.

xvi, 29, [2] pp. Introduction by Frederick Anderson. 4to, black cloth-backed patterned boards, spine label. One of 450 copies printed for the Colt Press by the Grabhorn Press.

B-A Note: Such an odd picture. His cigar looks more like a Pinocchio-nose at first glance.

Salesman’s Sample for the Underwood Edition of The Writings of Mark Twain
Mark Twain. Hartford CT, American Publishing Co, 1901.

16 etched plates, including title page, portrait frontispiece, and 15 plates from artwork by various illustrators. Also includes specimen title page and text pages from several works. (8vo), pebbled leather stamped in gilt, sample cloth backstrip mounted inside rear cover.
Rare. WorldCat locates but a single copy of this prospectus at the University of California, Berkeley.

Punch, Brothers, Punch! and Other Sketches
Mark Twain. Slote, Woodman & Col; New York, 1878.

First printing with Twain’s name in Roman on title page versus facsimile autograph of second printing; first state of text on pages 91 & 101; ad on rear pastedown 2-7/8x2”. BAL 3378.

The title story was originally published as “A Literary Nightmare”. From wiki: “The story is about Twain’s encounter with a virus-like jingle, and how it occupies his mind for several days until he manages to “infect” another person, thus removing the jingle from his mind. “

Mark Twain. A Tramp Abroad. Hartford, Connecticut: American Publishing Company, 1880.

Describing his third travel book, A Tramp Abroad, Mark Twain writes: “I call it a gossipy volume…It talks about anything and everything and always drops a subject the moment my interest in it begins to slacken….” Loosely structured and filled with digressions and side tales, the book documents Clemens’s 1878 adventures in Germany and Switzerland with his Hartford friend, Joseph Twitchell.

Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections
Cornell University Library

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and other sketches. Clemens, Samuel L. (Mark Twain). New York, C.H. Webb, 1867. Small 8vo (6 3/4 x 4 3/8 in.; 172 x 112 mm). via Sotheby’s

First edition, first issue, of the author’s first book, with the inserted ad leaf and the unbroken types at pages 21, 66, and 198. The verso of the preliminary flyleaf bears a bibliographical note signed by Merle Johnson.

The sketch is based upon an old folk tale that had been in print in California as early as 1853, but Clemens’s version, first published under his pseudonym and under the title “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog” in the New York Saturday Press (18 November 1865), elevated Clemens to literary fame.

B-A Note: One of my very favorite books (although my copy is significantly less valuable, of course!)

Lotos Leaves: Original Stories, Essays, and Poems John Brougham and John Elderkin. Boston, William F Gill & Co, 1875.

Notable for the first appearance of Mark Twain’s An Encounter with an Interviewer; includes contributions from Wilkie Collins and Tennyson. Edited by John Brougham and John Elderkin. Original decorative green cloth stamped in gilt & black. All edges gilt. Frontispiece numerous illustrations.

via Powell’s Rare Books

A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. Twain, Mark (aka Clemens, Samuel). With 220 Illustrations by Dan Beard. London, Chatto & Windus, 1889.

First London edition, catalogue dated October 1889. Octavo (7 3/8 x 4 7/8 ini; 185 x 122 mm). xvi, 525, [3], 232 catalogue pp. Frontispiece with tissue guard, 168 black and white illustrations. Original red cloth pictorially stamped in black and lettered in gilt. via David Brass Books

Action-packed binding!