Autograph manuscript of chapter 46 of A Tramp Abroad

by Mark TWAIN

$130,000 · Offered by Biblio

23 pages written in black ink on the rectos only of sheets of machine-laid writing paper, (8 x 4 ? in.; 203 x 124 mm.), [no place] ca. 1879; last two sheets laid down, the final one with marginal loss. Each leaf hinged to a larger sheet and bound, with a photogravure portrait of Clemens, in red morocco case, chemise. A manuscript portion of A Tramp Abroad. Published in 1880, A Tramp Abroad recounts Clemens's European tour with the Reverend Joseph H. Twichell (named Harris in the book) and describes their adventures in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, chiefly during a walking tour through the Black Forest and the Alps. The present chapter, originally numbered 57, is irregularly paginated 1964-1998, and is heavily emended with authorial corrections, additions and deletions. Most of the narrative details the visit of Clemens and Harris to Chamonix and their climb up an Alpine glacier. The chapter also contains a lengthy digression on the death rates of European and American cities, with Clemens blaming the higher rates of the former on the poison water, which he finds in Europe every where except in the mountains . . . flat & insipid beyond the power of words to describe. Provenance: Alfred Nathan (morocco label; AAA-Anderson, 27 November 1934, lot 73)--Estelle Doheny (Christie's New York, 21 February 1989, lot 1779).

• Year: 1879

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