A TRAMP ABROAD

First Edition, first single volume printing of the English edition, with the August ads, the earliest of the issue criteria. Illustrated with a facsimile page of manuscript from Twain’s notebooks. 8vo, publisher’s original red cloth, decorated in black and gilt on the spine and upper cover, patterned end-leaves. xxiii, [2], 564 pp. + 32 ads. A very bright, handsome and beautifully preserved copy with just a touch of mellowing to the binding, a very clean and solid copy.

Edizione: the first english edition issued in one volume. <br> the seemingly formless form of twain’s most typical work is both that of storytelling and travel; for like storytelling, travel is made up of episodic events and encounters.” in a tramp abroad, twain is discovering himself as a new man in a new place in time, “just as in roughing it, in its drive west, reveals its protagonist in a series of apprenticeships until he finds himself to be none other that the author in his achieved identity of mark twain, so huckleberry finn.reveals its protagonist in a series of initiations until he finds himself to be none other than.tom sawyer.”<br> of these journeys, twain was the master, seemingly never in doubt of himself or where he was going. he had been a riverboat captain and could steer a boat up or down the river through snags or chutes, around islands and bends. and so steering his imagination and ours was somehow no difficulty for this giant of the prose form.<br> this book is an experience in time travel and a splendid read for any of us serious about finding something special in the reading mark twain and great american literature.