Mark Twain’s Library of Humor

New York: Charles L. Webster & Company, 1888. Octavo (23.7 cm), xxiv, 707pp. First Edition, second state with alphabetized index of titles and "Warm Hair'' uncredited. Boards half bound in contemporary leather and maroon cloth with gilt stamping to the leather edges and spine. Marbled endsheets and page edges. All illustrations listed, including the frontis, are present. Board corners and spine margins bumped. Leather rubbed soft at all corners and joints as well as the raised bands on the spine. A bit of red rot from untreated leather. Scratches and discoloration all over. Loss of leather at the head of the spine and some at the board corners and hinges. Both front and back boards show some cracking at the top of the spine joint. Page edges have a few scratches. Minor starting at the front endsheet gutter. Binding slightly cocked but remains firm. Protective Association of Publishers & Booksellers stamp on the bottom of the back free endsheet. Pages 644 and 645 toned at the top margin from a triangle of laid-in newsprint. "222" in pencil on page xix. Some scattered foxing throughout but all other pages are relatively clean. The second state of this compendium of humor of Gilded Age America includes the paragraph-long story "Warm Hair" about a red-headed woman who shoots anyone who comments on or makes jokes about her auburn locks. This story was erroneously credited to Mark Twain in the first state, revised in the second to be credited to "Newspaper." [BAL 1982].…