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Author: Twain, Mark
Title: The Innocents Abroad - Presentation copy for his wife Olivia, each volume inscribed to her
Place Published: Leipzig
Publisher:Bernhard Tauchnitz
Date Published: 1879
Description:

Two volumes. 320; 335, [1] pp. 15.5x11 cm (6x4¼") period full pebbled red morocco, decorative gilt borders, spines gilt, patterned endpapers, all edges gilt. First Tauchnitz Edition, with a prefatory note by Twain written for this edition.

Each volume identically inscribed by Twain to his wife Olivia Langdon Clemens: "To Livy L. Clemens, With the love of S.L. Clemens". 

A specially bound copy of this popular European edition of Mark Twain's humorous account of his "Great Pleasure Excursion" on the ship Quaker City through Europe and the Holy Land in 1867, lovingly inscribed to the woman he became enchanted with on the voyage. Charles Langdon, Olivia's brother, was a fellow passenger on this trip and Twains' first sight of Olivia Landgon was in an ivory miniature in Langdon's stateroom. December 31, 1867, Twain visited the Langdons and was introduced to Olivia, in less than a fortnight he had proposed. A proposal she rejected, not agreeing to marry Twain until February 1869. The Clemens were married February 1870. Olivia was deeply involved in Twain's writings, serving at his request as proofreader and editor after their marriage.

Volumes inscribed by Twain to his wife are exceedingly rare. A search of auction records reveals only a single such volume having been offered in at least three decades. That being a German translation of Extracts from Adam's Diary (1901) in the collection of Estelle Doheny, sold by Christies in 1988.

Bindings rubbed, later clipped quote tipped to flyleaf of Volume 1; paper a touch browned at edges; very good.