“the finest piece of humorous literature yet produced in America.”
TWAIN, MARK (Samuel L. Clemens). The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches
C. H. Webb, New York, 1867
Original cloth. Spine ends chipped, a little rubbed, soiled. About very good. Half morocco case.
FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING. One of only 1000 copies, with the ad leaf before the title-page and with undamaged type in folio 21 and in the last lines of pages 66 and 198. In later impressions type is damaged and the ad leaf is not present.
The title story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” a tall tale of a bet placed on a jumping frog secretly weighted down with shot, was based on a folk tale circulating among miners during the California Gold Rush. Twain improved the tale to make it his own. “This humorous short story brought Twain his first popular acclaim and has proven to be his first literary masterpiece” (W. Craig Turner in The Mark Twain Encyclopedia). James Russell Lowell called the tale “the finest piece of humorous literature yet produced in America.”
“Mark Twain, with his account of the jumping frog, produced the most famous tale in California, if not Western, history. This little gem of humor that introduced the famed author’s first book gave him international prominence” (Kurutz).
Provenance: signed by the original owner, a girl or woman in California, inscribed “For ‘Tavie’ from Charlie July 3rd 1867” and further signed by the recipient “Miss Octavia Some Stockton, Cal.”
$16,000