The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-Day.

First edition, mixed state of the only novel Clemens wrote with a collaborator and the book that gave the era it’s name in history. Association copy, inscribed by Mark Twain on the fly-leaf, "To Mrs. P. T. Barnum with the kindest wishes of The Author Oct 1875." Octavo, bound in three quarter morocco, gilt titles to the spine, marbled endpapers, all edges marbled, fully illustrated from new designs by Hoppin, Stephens, Williams, White, etc., folding map. Sold by subscription only. The volume is accompanied by an autograph letter signed by Clemens to the second wife of P.T. Barnum of 14 April [no year]: “My Dear Mrs. Barnum: My wife and I are greatly pained to learn of the decease of Mrs. Seeley whom we remember so well & so pleasantly. Words are of but little value at such a time, but still we are moved to tender our deep sympathy to you & your household in you great bereavement. Truly yours Samuel L. Clemens.” Twain and Barnum were, by various accounts, friends, mutual admirers, and rivals. After visiting Barnum's American Business Museum in New York City as a teenager, Twain criticized it as “one vast peanut stand” yet upon the opening of Barnum's Hippodrome in 1875, he remarked, “I hardly know which to wonder at most…its stupendousness, or the pluck of the man who has dared to venture upon so vast an enterprise.” Clemens alluded to Barnum frequently in both his published works and private correspondence, and although he received many invitations from Barnum to dine in New York, he always declined. Barnum even proposed that the two collaborate on an anthology of "queer literature" based on letters he received from strangers hoping to join his circus, but Twain expressed little interest in the project. In 1867, Twain published “Barnum’s First Speech in Congress” , a satire of Reconstruction politics that painted Barnum as a ruthless exploiter of the performers he employed. Twain referred to the work as a “spiritual telegraph” delivered to him in advance from the “spirit world” and was certain that Barnum would never be elected to high office. In very good condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. A very unique association copy.