Beschreibung:

CLEMENS, Samuel, his copy]. TIMBS, John. Curiosities of London, Exhibiting the most rare and remarkable objects of interest in the Metropolis; with nearly sixty years personal recollections. A new edition, corrected and enlarged . London: John Camden Hotten, [1871].
CLEMENS, Samuel, his copy]. TIMBS, John. Curiosities of London, Exhibiting the most rare and remarkable objects of interest in the Metropolis; with nearly sixty years personal recollections. A new edition, corrected and enlarged . London: John Camden Hotten, [1871]. 8 o (218 x 140 mm). Engraved frontispiece of Timbs, engraved vignette on title-page. Polished calf, spine and covers stamped in gilt, top edges gilt, green endpapers, by Riviere and Son (hinges cracked, spine somewhat dry and with a few repairs); cloth slipcase. Provenance : Samuel Clemens (signature and annotations in pencil); Nick Karanovich (his sale Sotheby's, 19 June 2003, lot 240). CLEMENS'S COPY of this major source for The Prince and the Pauper , SIGNED ON RECTO OF FRONTISPIECE ("Samuel Clemens, Hartford, Conn.") AND HEAVILY ANNOTATED THROUGHOUT, with Clemens's marginalia and pencil markings. All together nearly 800 words in Clemens's hand. Clemens credited Timbs in the endnotes for The Prince and the Pauper for references to particular London landmarks or street customs. But his annotations show several uncredited examples of Timbs's influence on the work. On p.395, for example, Clemens writes "Loving Cup" along the top margin, and Timbs's notes about it reappear in burlesque form in chapter 10 of The Prince and the Pauper when a "burly waterman considerably exalted with liquor" performs his own rendition of the ceremony. The most substantial note is written on the rear endpapers and concerns Lady Jane Grey, one of the characters in The Prince and the Pauper : "A real curiosity in the British Museum is an autograph letter from Lady Jane Grey to the lord Lieut. of Surrey announcing her entry into possession of the Kingdom of England & requiring his allegiance against the 'fayned & untrewe clayme of the lady Marye, bastard daughter to our uncle henry th'eight.' Dated from the Tower, 10th July 1553, & signed 'Jane the Queene.' Poor girl was only queen 9 or 10 days, & perished within the only enclosure that knew her as such." The pleasure of this book is not just in tracing antecedents for Prince and the Pauper but seeing Clemens's great wit and intelligence at play as he bandies words with the author. For example when Timbs writes about a fire-eater show (p.22) and says drily, "the performances were suspected, and in fact proved, to be a chemical juggle," Clemens chides him: "Ah, but give us the secret!" On p.483 Timbs notes that only 12 Jews lived in London in 1663 but in the next sentence says the first synagogue was built in 1656. "This old fool is unreliable," Clemens writes. "12 couldn't build a synagogue." The few Jews in London suggests a satirical scenario: "a Jew could have been exhibited for money as a curiosity--picture it and describe." On p.386, alongside Timbs's discussion of the Guildhall Clemens writes: "So & so spectacle--maker does not signify that he is one but simply belongs to that guild. The Prince of Wales is a Fishmonger, but don't sell fish." Curious items caught his fancy for possible use in the book, such as "...unruly boys were kept confined in dungeons" (p.100); on p.563 Clemens writes "City of London only 4 miles in circumference"; on p.816 he marks "a deer hunt in London!"