TWAIN, Mark (pseudonym of CLEMENS, Samuel, 1835-1910). Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade). New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885. 8vo. Frontispiece and illustrations throughout by E. W. Kemble, with bust of Twain inserted at front. [2, blank], 366, [2, blank] pp. Publisher's full green cloth, front board and spine decoratively stamped in black and gilt. FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, FIRST ISSUE. With first issue points as per BAL and Macdonnell (bust of Twain on visible tablecloth captioned with the Heliotype Printing Co., "Decided" on p. 9, "Him and Another Man" is mis-numbered as "88" on p. 13, "with the was" on p. 57, title leaf and p. 283 are conjugate.) 

This title is considered by many to be the "great American novel," including Ernest Hemingway  ("all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn") and Ralph Ellison ("...in the United States the Negro and his status have always stood for moral concern. He symbolizes among other things the human and social possibility of equality. This is the moral question raised in our two great nineteenth-century novels, Moby-Dick and Huckleberry Finn. Jim, therefore, is not simply a slave, he is a symbol of humanity, and in freeing Jim, Huck makes a bid to free himself of the conventionalized evil taken for civilization by the town." 

Rebacked, preserving the original spine, binding worn, soiled, corners bumped, original endleaves present, hinges repaired, contemporary pencil signature on ffep., text lightly toned with occasional minor thumbsoiling. Very good.