L. W. Currey, Inc.

Twain, Mark (pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens). A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT. By Mark Twain [pseudonym]. New York: Charles L. Webster & Company, 1889. Square octavo, pp. [i-iv] v-xv [xvi] 17-575 [576: blank] [577-578: ads], flyleaves at front and rear, 220 illustrations by Dan Beard, original pictorial olive-green cloth, front panel stamped in black, blue-gray, and gold, spine panel stamped in gold, blue-gray endpapers with floral pattern printed in gold. First edition. Second state without small S-like ornament between "THE" and "KING" in caption on page [59]. The U.S. edition was to have been published 10 December 1889, but copies were apparently released earlier (DLC deposit copy recorded 5 December 1889). The Chatto & Windus edition was published 6 December 1889 as per the author's instructions. Twain's "best and most influential work of SF ..." - Clute and Nicholls (eds), The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993), p. 1247. "The classic 'dark' epoch collision projected backward in time ... the first (and still among the best) of all the 'new maps of hell.'" - Suvin, Victorian Science Fiction in the UK, pp. 39-40. Anatomy of Wonder (1981) 1-45; (1987) 1-25; (1995) 1-25; and (2004) II-1152. Barron (ed), Fantasy Literature 2-152. Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Early Years 2210. Clareson, Science-Fiction in America, 1870s-1930s 757. Lewis, Utopian Literature, pp. 190-91. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 215. Roemer, The Obsolete Necessity: America in Utopian Writings, 1888-1900, p. 187. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 80. Survey of Science Fiction Literature I, pp. 428-32. In 333. Bleiler (1978), p. 196. Reginald 14357. BAL 3429. Wright (III) 1090. Hint of rubbing to cloth at lower spine end and corner tips, a bright, nearly fine copy of this attractive book. A superior copy with tight inner hinges (today uncommon thus). (#138056).

Price: $1,000.00