Mark Twain’s Life On The Mississippi 1883 This book is “Life On The Mississippi” by Mark Twain, a first American edition, second state, published in Boston by James R. Osgood and Company in 1883. The book has 624 pages, with a frontispiece and over 300 black and white illustrations, it’s royal octavo bound in the publisher’s original brown cloth, with gilt lettering and gilt decorations on the spine, a pictorial cover decorated with a gilt image, and it lacks the illustration of Mark Twain’s head in flames on page 441 and the title of the hotel on page 443 has been corrected to “St. Charles Hotel. If it had Mark Twain’s head in flames on page 441 and it read “The St. Louis Hotel” on page 443, it would have been a first edition in the first state. Alas. It was published simultaneously in the United States and Great Britain, and it was first submitted to the publisher as a typewritten manuscript. See BAL 3411. The book is a memoir by Mark Twain of his days as a steamboat captain on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War, and it is also a travel book, recounting his trip up the Mississippi from New Orleans to Saint Paul many years after the war. The book begins with a brief history of the river as reported by Europeans and Americans, beginning with the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in 1542 and continues with anecdotes about Mark Twain’s training as a steamboat pilot and as a cub (apprentice) to an experienced pilot, Horace Bixby. He describes with great affection the science of navigating the ever-changing river, in a section that was first published in 1876 entitled “Old Times on the River”. Twain was actually 21 when he began his training, but he used artistic license to make himself seem younger, referring to himself as a “fledgling” and a “boy who ran way from home” to seek his fortune on the river and playing up his own youth, inexperience, and naivete. In the second half of the book, Twain - actually Samuel Clemens - narrates his trip many years later on a steamboat from St, Louis to New Orleans, shortly followed by a steamboat journey from New Orleans to St. Paul, with a stop at his boyhood home town of Hannibal, Missouri. He describes the growing competition from railroads and new, large cities, and adds his own observations on greed, gullibility, tragedy, and bad architecture. See Wikipedia. Also see “Points of Issue" by Bill McBride, published in West Hartford, Ct. in 1996. And if you don’t know, Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Clemens, one of the greatest writers and humorists this country has every known, and this book is a must- read for children and adults who enjoy good humor - regional and tongue-in-cheek humor - from one of the best. The book measures 9 x 6 1/8 in. wide, with a tight binding and clean pages, with just a couple of brown spots in the whole book, light fading on the spine, a couple of tips turned in, the book was rebound by Frank Mowery in Venice, Florida, with new endpapers that matched the color of the old endpapers, and repairs on the heel and crown. Frank has his own book-binding shop in Venice and calls it a paper conservatory. Look him up if you need books or documents to be repaired or restored. #2665