The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain, Later Edition, 1885

Twain, Mark. The Prince and the Pauper: A Tale for Young People of All Ages. New York: Charles L. Webster and Co., 1885. Later edition. Octavo. In publisher’s green cloth bindings with gilt and black pictorial embossing to boards. Presented with a new archival ¼ leather and cloth clamshell case. 

Presented is The Prince and the Pauper: A Tale for Young People of All Ages by celebrated American author Mark Twain. The book was published by Charles L. Webster and Co, in New York, and is a later 1885 edition. The book is presented in its original publisher’s green cloth boards with gilt and black pictorial embossing and a new archival ¼ leather and cloth clamshell case. 

The book was Mark Twain's first foray into historical fiction. Having returned from his second European tour, Twain was inspired to write a play set in Victorian England. He read extensively about English and French history in preparation for writing, ultimately deciding to set his story further back in time to 16th century Tudor England and change to a novel format. Twain consulted books like Hume’s History of England, Timbs’ Curiosities of England, and Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull’s Blue Laws, True and False in his research of Tudor law.  

Set in 1547, The Prince and the Pauper tells the story of two young boys who are identical in appearance: Tom Canty, a poor pauper , and Edward VI of England, the son of Henry VIII of England. The two boys meet, exchange clothes and places, and experience life from new perspectives, thus revealing to the Prince significant class inequality and the harsh, punitive nature of the King’s judicial system. While writing the novel, Twain wrote to William Dean Howells: “My idea is to afford a realizing sense of the exceeding severity of the laws of that day by inflicting some of their penalties upon the King himself and allowing him a chance to see the rest of them applied to others—all of which is to account for a certain mildness which distinguished Edward VI’s reign from those that preceded and followed it” 

The Prince and the Pauper was first published in 1881 in Canada. In 1882 The Prince and the Pauper was published by subscription by James R. Osgood of Boston, with illustrations by Frank Thayer Merrill, John Harley, and L. S. Ipsen. After Osgood’s publishing company went bankrupt in 1885, The Prince and the Pauper was reissued by Charles L. Webster and Co., who purchased and used the original first edition sheets from Osgood. 

CONDITION:

Very good condition. Octavo. In the original publisher’s green cloth binding with gilt and black embossed boards and spine. Interior pages are mostly clean, with small areas of foxing and toning, as expected with age. 

The book is presented with a new archival ¼ leather and cloth clamshell case. The clamshell has raised bands, gilt titles and tooling to the spine, an inlaid portrait of Twain on the front, and Twain’s facsimile signature embossed on both the front and inside of the case.  Book Dimensions: 8 3/4" H x 7" W x 1 1/4" D. Clamshell Dimensions: 10" H x 8 1/2" W x 2" D.