Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Maker
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
(American, 1835 - 1910)
Owner
William Henry Vanderbilt II
(American, 1870 - 1892)
Date1885
ClassificationsHistory
DimensionsOverall: 8 3/4 x 7 x 1 1/4 in. (22.2 x 17.8 x 3.2 cm)
DescriptionAdventures of Huckleberry Finn by Samuel Langhorne Clemens ("Mark Twain"). New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885. Square octavo, with its original blue gilt-decorated pictorial cloth. This is a first edition with early issue points: first state of p. 57 with "was" for "saw"; first state of the "Him and Another Man" plate listed as being on p. 88; the title leaf is a cancel with 1884 copyright date; the frontispiece is in first state. This copy of Huckleberry Finn was owned by William Henry Vanderbilt, Junior, and is signed and inscribed in the front free endpaper in Vanderbilt's hand: "W.H. Vanderbilt, Jr. April 11th 1885. 1 West 57th St. New York City. U.S.A."
William Henry Vanderbilt Junior (1870-1892) was the eldest son of Cornelius Vanderbilt II (1843-1899), who was the eldest son of William Henry Vanderbilt (1821-1885), the eldest son of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877). The young Vanderbilt inscribed book when he was fifteen years old. He attended Yale University in 1889 before he succumbed to typhoid fever on May 23, 1892, at 21 years old.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist who was one of the preeminent American writers of the late 19th century. Twain captured life in the American West, drawing from his early life experiences as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River and other travels. He published articles and essays in various newspapers and magazines before gaining a national audience with his short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1865), first published in The New York Saturday Press.
Twain's 1876 novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, became his best-selling work and established his legacy in American literature. The semi-autobiographical tale told the story of Tom Sawyer and his various adventures living along the Mississippi River from the satirical perspective of American culture that later became a trademark of Twain's work. Its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), follows Sawyer's friend, Huck Finn, and builds upon Twain's social criticism with themes of racism and classism throughout the book. Twain's works have been met with controversy, and have been the subject of censorship due to their content, as early as 1885. Huckleberry Finn is often included in the list of books considered as a Great American Novel, capturing the essence of American culture at a specific point in time. It was one of the first works to drawn on the regional vernacular of the United States, including the use of course language and racial epithets. Ernest Hemingway later wrote of the book: "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn."
