Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Twain, Mark (Samuel L. Clemens). The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Chatto & Windus, London, 1876.
Price: US$5000.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First English edition, preceding the first American edition by six months. Octavo. [viii], [1]-341, [2] pages. Twentieth Century brown morocco by Zaehnsdorf for E. Joseph with titles stamped in gilt on the front board and between five raised bands on the spine. Gilt floral dentelles, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt. Previous owner "J. R. Minshull Ford 1876" in ink on the title page. A handsome copy in near fine condition.
Seller: Magnum Opus Rare Books, Missoula, MT, U.S.A.
Twain, Mark (Samuel L. Clemens). The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Chatto & Windus, London, 1876.
Price: US$7000.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First Edition, First Printing with 1876 date printed on the title page. A beautiful copy bound in brown leather with raised bands and gold lettering. The binding is tight with NO cocking or leaning and the boards are crisp. The pages are clean with NO writing, marks or bookplates in the book. A wonderful copy in collector's condition.
Seller: Magnum Opus Rare Books, Missoula, MT, U.S.A.
Price: US$7407.51 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: FIRST EDITION. First impression. 8vo. (7.8 x 5.9 inches). A few small marks to just a handful of pages but generally this is a clean and bright copy throughout. Finely bound in recent full red morocco. Spine with five raised bands. Gilt ruling, lettering and decorations to compartments. Single gilt ruled border on boards. Top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Original publishers decorative front board and spine, which is rubbed and toned, have been bound in at the rear. Overall a very good attractive copy of the true first edition of this classic book. First published in England in order to secure a British copyright, the London edition precedes the American edition by about six months.
Seller: Paul Foster. - ABA & PBFA Member., London, United Kingdom
Twain Mark. THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER. London Chatto and Windus 1876, 1876.
Price: US$9350.00 + shipping
Description: RARE AND TRUE FIRST PRINTING. The True First Edition, English issue preceding the American issue thus the earliest issue available. 8vo, publishers original red cloth, ornately decorated on the upper cover and spine in gilt and black. [viii], 341, [1[ pp. Internally quite clean and still fresh, the original red cloth with some general evidence of age, some typical evidence of shelving or use, the original spine panel laid down, a well-preserved copy of this rare book. FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING OF THE SCARCE LONDON ISSUE, PRECEDING THE AMERICAN AND THUS THE EARLIEST ISSUE ATTAINABLE OF THIS GREAT AMERICAN CLASSIC. TOM SAWYER is now considered to be, along with HUCKLEBERRY FINN, one of the great stepping stones to the modern American novel. It, like Whitmans LEAVES OF GRASS and Melvilles MOBY DICK, typifies and describes the American spirit. It lies at that very special moment in history when America, having challenged its past sets off on the new adventures that will force it into the coming century and the great expansion of its democratic spirit. To this day, it remains a cornerstone of American literature.
Seller: Buddenbrooks, Inc., Newburyport, MA, U.S.A.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. London: Chatto and Windus, 1876.
Price: US$27000.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Original red cloth. Two gatherings a little loose. Minor wear. A very good copy. Half morocco case. First edition of the iconic American Boy s Book. Twain s first novel written without a co-author, Tom Sawyer proved to be one of the most durable works in American literature. By the time of Twain s death, it was his top-selling book. It had been in print continuously since 1876, and has outsold all other Mark Twain works (Rasmussen). Tom Sawyer was the first printed story of a boy in which the hero was recognizable as a boy throughout the whole narrative until Tom Sawyer was written, nearly all the boys of fiction were adults with a lisp, or saintly infants, or mischievous eccentrics in the work of Dickens there were hints of boys that were boys; but Tom was the first full blown boy in all fiction the book is a landmark (Booth Tarkington). This novel of a boy growing up along the Mississippi River is set in a town called St. Petersburg, inspired by Samuel Clemens s hometown of Hannibal, Missouri. The author may have been named Tom after a San Francisco fireman whom he met in June 1863. The real Tom Sawyer was a local hero, famous for rescuing ninety passengers after a shipwreck in 1853. The two were friendly during the author s years in California, often drinking and gambling together. Twain referred to the real Tom Sawyer in Roughing It, but in later years he claimed that he himself was the model for Tom and that Sawyer was not the real name of any person I ever knew, so far as I can remember (see Smithsonian, October 2012). This first edition was issued in England on June 9, 1876, preceding the American edition by six months. It proved to be his most popular work in his lifetime: by the time Mark Twain died, it was his top selling book (Rasmussen, 458). The true first edition of Tom Sawyer is among the most difficult of the great 19th-century American novels to obtain in collector s condition.
Seller: 19th Century Rare Book & Photograph Shop, Stevenson, MD, U.S.A.