Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade). by TWAIN, Mark - 1885: With one hundred and seventy-four illustrations.

New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885. The first printing in the original binding, presented by the author to his lecture manager First US edition, first printing, presentation copy, inscribed by the author in the month of publication on the preliminary blank, "To Major J. B. Pond With the affections of Mark Twain Feb. 21/85", and further extensively inscribed by Pond ("This is the first copy that the author ever set his eyes on...") Major James Burton Pond (1838-1903) became a lecture manager after a distinguished career in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Pond was hired by Twain in the summer of 1884 to oversee his lengthy 1884-85 lecture tour which would encompass eighty cities and number over a hundred performances. The tour was a critical and commercial success, earning Twain $17,000, and included some of Twain's first readings from Huckleberry Finn.
Only three substantive changes were introduced after the first printing: at p. 13 the erroneous page reference "88" was changed to "87"; at p. 57 the misprint "with the was" was corrected to "with the saw"; and at p. 9 the misprint "Decided" was corrected to "Decides". This copy has all these in first state. The frontispiece was printed separately and inserted at random, and has no relation to the order of the printed sheets.
Copies in the original half morocco binding are the least often met with. Less than two weeks before publication, the publisher Webster announced that he was binding 20,000 copies in cloth, another 2,500 in sheep, and 500 copies in half morocco. Webster's own copy, also half morocco, was dated by him as having been received from the binder on 26 November 1884. At some stage it was realised that the Uncle Silas illustration on page 283 had been mischievously tampered with. In this copy, the illustration is in first state. Octavo (214 x 164 mm). Publisher's half morocco, marbled edges, marbled endpapers, rebacked with original spine laid down. Custom red morocco-backed slipcase and chemise. Photogravure portrait frontispiece (second state, with the imprint of the Heliotype Printing Company and with "Karl Gerhardt, Sc." added to the finished edge of the shoulder), illustrated throughout with 173 text illustrations after E. W. Kemble. Boards slightly rubbed, one spot of soiling above text on title page, pp. 147-152 with minor loss from each upper corner not affecting text. BAL 3415; Grolier, 100 American, 87; Johnson, pp. 43-50; Kevin MacDonnell, "Huck Finn among the Issue-Mongers," Firsts; The Book Collector's Magazine, Volume 8, Number 9 (September 1998), pp. 28-35.