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The Suppressed Chapter of “Life on the Mississippi.”
[New York, circa 1913]. 8vo, self wrappers. 4 pp. First edition of what was to be Chapter 48 of Twain’s Life on the Mississippi. One of 250 copies, this copy number 208. The publisher, Osgood & Co. of Boston, concluded that Twain’s views on “southern political slavery” might offend the southern book buyer, and the chapter was expunged as the book was going through the press. It was all but forgotten until after Twain’s death, when the manuscript was found among the Osgood papers. According to Caroline Ticknor (”Mark Twain’s Missing Chapter” in The Bookman, NY, May, 1914), someone made a copy of the manuscript while it was on its way to its “last resting place in a famous collection,” i.e. the J. P. Morgan collection, and this pirated edition was the result. REFERENCES: BAL 3519. CONDITION: Very good.
Item #3290
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