November 26 Wednesday – Sam and Cable left Washington for Philadelphia, where they gave a reading in Association Hall. In the evening, they gave a reading in Morristown, New Jersey and spent the night at the home of Thomas Nast, just before Nast began his own tour. The cartoonist arranged for them a quiet supper…Oysters on the shell were served at the little repast, and Mr. Clemens expressed his delight at the quality thereof and at Nast’s urging ate five plates full, after which he asked for an apple. Sam and George were to leave early the next morning, and Mrs. Nast agreed to see that they were up in time. When she woke she found the men still asleep and every clock in the house stopped. Sam said, “Wal, those clocks are all overworked, anyway. They will feel much better for a night’s rest” [Paine, Nast 511-12].

The first copy of HF was bound with a tipped-in dedication that was later removed in favor of the current one. This page, apparently on the same paper as MS2, survives tipped into a copy of the first American edition in which Webster wrote: “This copy of ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ was bound by J.F. Tapley Nov 26th 1884, and is the first copy ever bound.”

Note: This same item, book with page tipped in was sold at Christies [sale 51, item 1388] on 9 June 2004, price realized $265,100. Here is the deleted page:

TO THE ONCE BOYS & GIRLS who comraded with me in the morning of time & the youth of antiquity, in the village of Hannibal, Missouri, this book is inscribed, with affection for themselves, respect for their virtues, & reverence for their honorable gray hairs.

The Author

“It was probably sometime during these months [from Sept 1883 to mid-April 1884] that he wrote a dedication for the book and added it (in holographic manuscript) to his assembled typescript — although he ultimately deleted it before publication” [MTP].

George Cable wrote from Philadelphia to his wife, Lucy:

 I wrote you last in Wash’n. I didn’t tell you that I met Fred. Douglass. He came into the retiring room & was there when the President was there. They met as acquaintances. Think of it! A runaway slave!

Mark is on the stage reading (reciting) his “Desperate Encounter with an Interviewer,” and the roars of laughter fall as regularly as a surf. I think it’s a great thing to be able to hold my own with so wonderful a platform figure [Turner, MT & GWC 62].