Roughing It
Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, 1872. First Edition, First State. 591pp. Octavo [23 cm] Brown cloth with the title gilt stamped on the backstrip. About very good with rubbing and wear to extremities with the corners exposed. Complete with both frontispieces and six tipped-in plates. Item #8340
By the time Sam Clemens was 25 years old, he had served two apprentices as a Mississippi riverboat pilot and as a printer in his boyhood home of Hannibal and in large Eastern cities. He had shown little promise in either of these until July of 1861 when he rode the Overland Stage west with his brother Orion, recently appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory. In 'Roughing It,' Clemens wryly comments on various subjects, such as the Pony Express, Mormons and Indians, while enroute to his frontier destination. It was during this time and later, his time in California that Clemens evolved from a crude reporter into Mark Twain, a master of humor and satire. Paher 350. Flake/Draper 2431. Howes C481. Zamorano 18. Cowan p. 49. BAL 3337.
Price: $500.00