LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI by Twain, Mark - 1883

Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1883. Near fine.. First edition, first state intermediate A, a great example - which also includes a separately published copy of the famous suppressed chapter, discovered much later with the original manuscript and clandestinely printed in run of only 250 copies. A memoir of Twain's experiences as a steamboat pilot before the Civil War, LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI draws together two major strands of Twain's writing: the pensive regional descriptions of the South of his younger years, and the spirited travel narratives that took readers with him on adventures. Twain biographer Justin Kaplan sees the development of this memoir and HUCKLEBERRY FINN, written at the same time, as "symbiotic": when stuck on one, Twain would turn to the other. The relationship between the two was so close that material from HUCK actually ended up in LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI, including an entire chapter.

With this copy is one of the limited first printings of a chapter that was suppressed from the book's original publication. Discovered among Twain's papers before the book manuscript ended up at the Morgan library, it was quietly copied and published as a piracy in 1913. The chapter describes the "horror" of slavery, extra-judicial murders (i.e. lynchings), and references the Ku Klux Klan ("with masks on"): although Twain's opinions were far from an unambiguous condemnation of the South, his publisher removed them for fear they "might have a detrimental effect upon the Southern buyer" (Caroline Ticknor). The piracy has since become quite collectible in its own right. 8.5'' x 5.5''. Original brown pictorial cloth elaborately stamped in black and gilt. Grey endpapers. Illustrated with black-and-white frontispiece wood engraving and many smaller wood engravings throughout. Tailpiece with Twain in flames on page 441; "The St. Charles Hotel" on page 443 (ref. BAL). 624 pages. Housed in custom quarter goatskin clamshell box with pictorial paste-on replicating cover design; suppressed chapter held in place under box lid with ribbon in archival sleeve. Ink owner inscription dated in year of publication on verso of fly leaf. Hinges starting. Crease to cloth on rear panel of binding, apparently production error. Light rubbing to spine ends and corners. Overall much fresher than usual.