PUNCH, BROTHERS, PUNCH! and Other Sketches de Twain, Mark - 1878

1878. New York: Slote, Woodman & Co., n.d. [1878]. 4 pp undated ads. Original red-orange wrappers decorated in black and gold.

First Edition, second printing, second binding, of this collection of nine short tales. The title one is an amusing tale about the author hearing a musical jingle and having it "infect" his mind like a virus -- wiping out his memory and incapacitating his ability to write, until he inadvertently passes the "virus" off to someone else. Another tale, "The Loves of Alonso Fitts Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton," is said to be the first story written that includes a telephone as part of the plot (24 months after Bell's patent). The second printing is identified by (a) Twain's name on the title page in facsimile autograph rather than in roman type; (b) two leaves of ads, rather than one; (c) correction of the error "health offi...... could" on p. 91, and (d) sixteen lines of text (postscript added) on p. 101. The book was issued simultaneously in cloth and in wrappers -- each of which has an earlier and a later state; this is in the later wrapper binding, with "Mark Twain's Punch" on the spine and with the larger rear cover illustration. This is a very good-plus copy, with minor wear at the spine ends (barely affecting one letter), plus a large bookplate on the inside front cover. Today, copies in wrappers are somewhat scarcer than copies in cloth. Blanck 3378.