August 2020 Catalogue

A u g u s t 2 0 2 0 57 “Only A Very Small Minority Can Properly Claim To Be Sane”: Humorously Inscribed By Mark Twain 55. TWAIN, Mark. Christian Science. With Notes Containing Corrections to Date. New York and London, 1907. Octavo, original red cloth. $13,500. Click for more info First edition, first state, of Twain’s satirical diatribe on Christian Science—then a relatively new and rapidly growing religion in the United States—and the religion’s founder, Mary Baker Eddy, wonderfully inscribed: “Only a very small minority can properly claim to be sane. Mark Twain,” in answer to a question posed above in an unidentified hand: “This book should live when the delusion is dead. Is there any danger that a majority of the race will become insane?” “A tour de force of penetrating wit and clean analysis, revealing both his skill in polemics and his disdain for obscure grandiosity and sham spirituality” (Le Master & Wilson, 144). Without rear free endpaper. Occasional inoffensive pencil side lines to text margins. Tear to frontispiece tissue guard. A fine copy, wonderfully inscribed. “From end to end of the Christian Science literature not a single (material) thing in the world is conceded to be real, except theDollar.”