The Claverings

New York: Harper & Brothers,, 1866. True First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. TEMPORARILY DISCOUNTED. WAS $365. NOW $100. A Very Good copy of the first American Edition, first printing in The Publisher's green boards. While dated 1866, Harpers published the novel simultaneously in both hardcover and in original wrappers on February 8, 1867. Both formats constitute the First American Edition (with the wrappered edition being so scarce that we have encountered only one copy of it the last four decades), and being, in fact, the TRUE FIRST EDITION as the first English Edition was not published until April 20, 1867. (see Smith). At the time of this Harper publication, the novel was still being published in serialization both in Littell's Living Age [March 3, 1866 through March 2, 1867] as well as in the Galaxy [May 1, 1866 through March 1, 1867], using the serialization appearing in England in the Cornhill Magazine. Both American publishing houses objected to Harper's publication of the full novel before their respective serializations were completed and were compelled to complete their publications of the novel by publishing the last nine (9) chapters of the work in March, 1867 in an effort to stay competitive with Harper in their publication of the novel. Of this early publication, Littell declared it to be a violation of the "courtesy of the Trade" that Harper's did not "...see their conduct as others see it" and that they have so good an appetite, and so strong arms, that they eat more than Christian politeness warrants. In short, because of this competition, we have in this Harper's first the TRUE FIRST EDITION OF THE NOVEL'S FULL TEXT, it being worth noting that only 24 of the 32 illustrations that appeared in the Cornhill serialization appeared in the Harper first edition, and only the full-page plates (i.e., 16 of the 32 illustrations) that appeared in the two-volume first English edition of the novel published on April 20, 1867. Thus this Harper edition has priority over the two-volume English first edition not only with respect to the complete text but also with respect to the majority of the illustrations. This copy, the binding of which the binding is askew, is in Very Good condition and shows wear to the spine ends and to each board's leading corners and the gilt to the spine has dulled (all of which is common to this edition). The leaves show a tear here and there and the upper edge of the earliest and latest leaves, and the pastedowns, show some tide marking to their upper extremities, and the last rear free endpaper bears some pencil names to its verso. The "1" on page 102 is clipped (as Smith saw in some copies he reviewed, and the last line on page 211 (being the last sentence of the text) shows "he" as the definite pronoun rather than the correct pronoun "she" that appears in the first English edition. Of the tale, Trollope stated: "I consider the story as a whole to be good, though I am not aware that the public ever corroborated that verdict." While showing some wear, this copy is as nice as, or in better condition than, the other copies we have seen.