Roughing It
- Hartford, Conn: American Publishing Company, 1872
Hartford, Conn: American Publishing Company, 1872. First edition. Near Fine. A lovely, Nearly Fine copy of the book. Spine gilt a bit dulled, light wear to spine ends and corners. First state of p. 242 and with the terminal advertisement (BAL 3337). (And with the other first state points, including the errors on pgs. 156 and 330 uncorrected). A book that is surprisingly scarce in anything approaching Fine condition in the original cloth. Inner hinges intact (and without repairs).
Twain’s humorous travelogue of his journey to the Wild West – and Hawaii. Twain had just served briefly as a militiaman in the Confederacy but quickly left before deciding to pay a visit to his brother, who had been made secretary of the Nevada Territory. Though the book was published in 1872, it was actually based on experiences Twain had between the early and mid 1860s. It’s one of Twain’s earliest published books. Noted critic William Dean Howells wrote, in a contemporary review in The Atlantic: “A thousand anecdotes, relevant and irrelevant, embroider the work; excursions and digressions of all kinds are the very woof of it, as it were; everything far-fetched or near at hand is interwoven, and yet the complex is a sort of "harmony of colors" which is not less than triumphant.”
And here's a fun tidbit, Chuck Jones (creator of The Road Runner cartoon) based Wile E. Coyote on a description of a coyote from this book: "a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton" that is "a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is always hungry."
Zamorano 80. Near Fine.
Twain’s humorous travelogue of his journey to the Wild West – and Hawaii. Twain had just served briefly as a militiaman in the Confederacy but quickly left before deciding to pay a visit to his brother, who had been made secretary of the Nevada Territory. Though the book was published in 1872, it was actually based on experiences Twain had between the early and mid 1860s. It’s one of Twain’s earliest published books. Noted critic William Dean Howells wrote, in a contemporary review in The Atlantic: “A thousand anecdotes, relevant and irrelevant, embroider the work; excursions and digressions of all kinds are the very woof of it, as it were; everything far-fetched or near at hand is interwoven, and yet the complex is a sort of "harmony of colors" which is not less than triumphant.”
And here's a fun tidbit, Chuck Jones (creator of The Road Runner cartoon) based Wile E. Coyote on a description of a coyote from this book: "a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton" that is "a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is always hungry."
Zamorano 80. Near Fine.