The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade) with FORE-EDGE PAINTINGS de TWAIN, Mark [Samuel CLEMONS] - 1885

New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885. First American Edition, 3rd State. Full leather. Very good +. Martin Frost. First American edition, third state. Octavo; 366pp; dark green grained calf, gilt border, 5 raised-bands and gilt-stamped spine with 4 ornaments; all edges gilt; double fore-edge paintings; marbled endpapers; original publisher's green cloth front board bound onto front pastedown; a few light finger smudges, smudges to portrait plate; very good plus. Housed in a custom made dark green cloth covered slip case, lined in a soft white felt, edged in black calf, and stamped with a gilt-ornament to the top. BAL 3415.

Two elaborate and highly detailed fore-edge paintings by noted British fore-edge painter, Martin Frost (b. 1951), illustrate scenes from the novel. One pictures three riverboats on the Mississippi, the large paddle steamer in the forefront named, "Queen of the West". The other painting shows a flooded Mississippi river with a floating roof carrying seven people, being used as a raft and poled down the river, a submerged plantation house in the background. The small artist's initials "MF" appear the stylized form he was known for, in front of the large paddle wheeler in the one painting. Weber 151. One of Mark Twain's classic American novels, first published in the United Kingdom in December of 1884, and then in the United States in February 1885. The story is placed along the Mississippi River and features Southern culture. Known for his sharp wit, much of the book is satire focusing on the attitudes of society.