The Mississippi Pilot

London : Ward, Lock, and Tyler, [1877]. bound with : “Jinny” by Bret Harte. London : George Routledge and Sons. Octavo, half roan over marbled boards (heavily rubbed), text block cracked, pp. [vi]; 142; (2 – catalogue), 124; (4 – catalogue), occasional light foxing, a good copy.

First edition thus of The Mississippi Pilot by Mark Twain, being a reprint of Old Times on the Mississippi published in 1876, itself being a single volume edition of writing serialised in Atlantic Monthly Magazine in 1875. The writings would later be incorporated into Life on the Mississippi which is the non-fiction work of river life which Twain is best known for.

The writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens was indeed a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, he spent two years training on how to navigate it’s challenging waterway, and his writings on the subject (under various titles) drew on his lived experiences. In fact, it was piloting that gave Twain his pen name “Mark Twain”, which the leadsman’s cry for a measured river depth of two fathoms (12 feet), the minimum depth of water by which a steamboat can safely travel.