The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrim's Progress.
Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, 1871. With two hundred and thirty-four illustrations. Early printing. Three-quarters brown crushed morocco, over marbled boards, blind ruled, spine decoration stamped in black with gilt title, with marbled edges and endpapers. xviii, 19-651, [5 ads.]. 9" x 6" Rubbed boards, corners and edges lightly worn, toned text block edges, 1871 owner inscription binder's blank, else near fine. Overall an internally clean and brightly marbled copy. Item #237130
TWAIN'S PLEASURE CRUISE
In his bestselling publication during his lifetime, Mark Twain was funded by a newspaper to travel on the first pleasure cruise from America and send back letters about his travels through the Mediterranean. Twain eventually compiled the letters into a subscription-based book for the American Publishing Company in 1869.
The travel book was written for an audience that would most likely never leave the United States, so Twain grappled with foreignness and his own disenchantment with history, particularly religious history. He recounts the disparities between the wealth of the Catholic Church in Italy and the banality of discovering that the kings of the Old Testament ruled over fewer people than live in a small American town in Israel in his signature blistering social commentary disguised as wit.
This early printing, published only two years after the first edition, is ornately marbled and internally clean.
[McBride 8, for the first edition BAL 3316].
Price: $475.00