MARK TWAIN'S [Date, 1601.]: Conversation As It Was By The Social Fireside In The Time Of The Tudors. Embellished With an Illuminating Introduction, Facetious Footnotes and a Bibliography by Franklin J. Meine

Chicago: Privately Printed for The Mark Twain Society of Chicago, 1939. Limited edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Small quarto, 80 pages, red cloth, fore-edge untrimmed, spine sunned, lacks slipcase.

This is an unnumbered copy 1000 copies. This copy is inscribed to Bill Schenk, "this airy bit of persiflage / in memory of the good / old days at Consolidated Book / Best good wishes / Franklin J. Meine / Chicago / Flebruary / 1953". In addition, there is a typo correction on page 15 initialled by Meine [ Note: he missed one on p.57]. Arguably the best edition of this suppressed ribald classic. At the time, the Twain Society of Chicago had about 7 members. Franklin Meine's huge collection of midwestern American humor is at the University of Illinois at Urbana. He was a editor at Consolidated Book Publisher. Pages 69ff. are Meine's annotated bibliography of 44 editions of 1601. "The late Mark Twain wrote a brochure called [1601] ... I have never seen the work - not many people have - but a literary friend of mine used to quote appetizing extracts from it. Frankly, my life will seem to me incomplete unless some day I shall possess a copy of this book. I suspect Mark was a bit shy of it in later years - but who can doubt that it will live as long as anything of his?" - Michael Monahan.