EXTRACT FROM CAPTAIN STORMFIELD'S VISIT TO HEAVEN.
New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1909. Original red cloth pictorially decorated in black and white.
First Edition. This fascinating piece begins, "Well, when I had been dead about thirty years, I begun to get a little anxious. Mind you, I had been whizzing through space all that time, like a comet...".
Twain's vision of Heaven, and the journey required to get there, subverts most of the traditional Christian views of the place. The Heaven presented by Twain is a lot like that presented by Elizabeth Stuart in THE GATES AJAR, which Twain had read years before, and which he mentions in the text [MacDonnell].
In this copy the sheets bulk 5/8", the thickest of three variants (priority if any unknown). This is a near-fine copy with scarcely any wear or soil (a tiny mark at the lower rear cover); the spine is less faded than usual, and the "white flaking" is very limited. Blanck 3511; McBride p. 234. Item #15555
Price: $225.00