– 63 – A u g u s t 2 0 2 2 “All Modern Literature Comes From One Book By Mark Twain. It’s The Best Book We’ve Had” (Hemingway) 73. TWAIN, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade). New York, 1885. Octavo, original pictorial green cloth, custom half morocco clamshell box. $16,000. First edition, first issue, of “the most praised and most condemned 19th-century American work of fiction” (Legacies of Genius, 47), with 174 illustrations by Edward Kemble. Written over an eight-year period, Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn endured critical attacks from the moment of publication, standing accused of “blood-curdling humor,” immorality, coarseness and profanity. The book nevertheless emerged as one of the defining novels of American literature, prompting Hemingway to declare: “All modern literature comes from one book by Mark Twain. It’s the best book we’ve had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing since.” This copy has all of the commonly identified first-issue points (the printer assembled copies haphazardly; bibliographers do not yet agree as to the priority of many points). Occasional smudging to text, as often; rear inner paper hinge expertly repaired. Cloth with minor wear to extremities, gilt bright. A lovely copy.
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