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35 volumes First Edition Issued by Gabriel Wells. Autographed, Limited and Numbered. With signature of Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain's biographer, attesting to the authenticity of the fly-leaf being signed twice by the author of the works, both as Mark Twain and S L Clemens in 1906. With frontispiece and full page gravure illustrations and descriptive tissue guards throughout. 8vo, publisher's original blue cloth over paper covered boards, the spines with printed paper labels as issued. A very good copy. The spine panels, labels and fore-edges with some age evidence and mellowing as is typical for the binding. The bindings all strong, probaly a pristine and unread set with much of the work still unopened. Internally clean and in excellent condition. FIRST EDITION OF THIS FINE COLLECTION AND THE DEFINITIVE EDITION OF THE WORKS OF MARK TWAIN, WITH AUTOGRAPHS AS BOTH CLEMENS AND TWAIN. Mark Twain, humorist, and essayist, one of the great literary forces in Amercan history was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature. It is instructive to note that the most pervasive structural characteristic of Mark Twain s (November 30, 1835 April 21, 1910) work, of his nonfiction as well as his fiction, is dualistic. That observation is not worth much without detailed application to specific aspects of particular works, but even before turning to particulars, it is useful to consider how many "pairs" of contending, conflicting, complementary, or contrasting characters, situations, states of being, ideas, and values run through Twain s work. One thinks immediately of Tom and Huck, of Huck and Jim, of Huck and Pap, of the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, of the prince and the pauper, of the two sets of twins in Pudd nhead Wilson, and of Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens. One also thinks of boys testing themselves against adults, of youth and adulthood, of the free life on the river contrasted with the settled life of the river towns, of the wilderness and civilization, of the promises of industrial progress against the backdrop of the humbler, traditional rural setting, of Eden and everything east of Eden, and, finally, of good and evil. The tonal quality of Twain s works is also dualistic. The jumping frog story is almost pure fun. The "Mysterious Stranger" stories, one of which was first published in bowdlerized form after Twain s death, are almost pure gloom. Most of Twain s fiction comes between the two, both chronologically and thematically. Except for The Gilded Age, which he wrote with Charles Dudley Warner, the novels, from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to the final two, Pudd nhead Wilson and Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, fall within the thematic and tonal extremes established by the short fiction. That is, Tom s adventures take place in the hallowed light of innocence and virtue beyond the reach of any truly effective evil forces, while Roxy s adventures in Pudd nhead Wilson are of almost unrelieved gloom. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is midway between the extremes, with its blending of the light and affirmation that shine so brightly in Twain s childhood idyll with the darkened vision of the later years. Nearly everyone agrees that The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain s second novel, is an American classic, and many also agree that there is no accounting for its success. It is at the same time a novel of the utmost simplicity and of deep complexity. The novel is a marvelous boy s adventure story, a fact given perspective by Twain s observation that "it will be read only by adults." That is, the essence of childhood can be savored only after the fact, only after one has passed through it and can look back upon it. Popularizations of Tom s adventures are produced for children, but the continuing vitality of the novel depends upon the adult sensibility and its capacity and need for nostalgic recollection. Twain plays on all the strings of. Seller Inventory # 34021
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