Mark Twain. A Tramp Abroad. American Publishing Company, 1880.

Price: US$1150.00 + shipping

Condition: Near Fine

Description: Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Slipcase. Very Good. First edition, second state with illustration entitled "Titian's Moses." From the library of Eugene Field. 631 pp. plus a 1-page publisher's advertisement at the rear. Rebound in full morocco and decorative endpapers with raised bands. Gilt top edge. Light rubbing to book's extremities. Custom/matching slipcase rubbed on the corners. Original brown cloth bound into the back of the book The book appears to be signed by Mark Twain on the title page and Eugene Field on a rear flyleaf. The signatures, though quite convincing, are likely forgeries made by the famed forger Eugene "Pinny" Field II (1879-1946) and Harry Dayton Sickles, working in tandem. Field's father, Eugene Field (1850-1895), was a newspaper columnist, poet, and book collector. After his death, Eugene Field's book collection passed on to his son. The younger Field developed the ability to imitate the autographs of the authors his father had collected as well as the signature of his father. As a result, Field II used his skills to create "signed" copies of his father's books, and, thus, more profitable. It is believed that Field and Sickles went on to falsify more than one hundred Abraham Lincoln documents as well as signatures of numerous other famous figures including Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, Frederic Remington, Theodore Roosevelt, and Robert Louis Stevenson. These forgeries have become collectible in their own right.

Seller: EGR Books, Centreville, VA, U.S.A.