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[TWAIN, MARK-LIBRARY OF] LANIER, SYDNEY. Shakspere and his Forerunners: Studies in Elizabethan Poetry and its Development from Early English. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1902. A fine family association copy with four inscriptions (two to each volume) by Twain to his sister-in-law Susan Langdon Crane, each volume with "To Susan L. Crane from S.L. Clemens, 1903"and "To SL.C from SL.C., 1903" on either the front flyleaf or pastedown, to one inscription Twain has added the location of Quarry Farm, each volume also with the later inscription by Susan L. Crane "To Olivia Langdon Loomis, September 6, 1922." Two volumes. Publisher's red cloth gilt, housed in a folding cloth case. 9 1/2 x 6 1/4 inches (24 x 16 cm); title-pages in red and black, frontispieces and numerous plates. Spines faded and frayed at tips, a few spots to spine of first volume . A fine Clemens family copy of a study on Shakespeare, signed from Quarry Farm where Clemens wrote large portions of both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn . Quarry Farm was the summer home of Susan Langdon Crane, sister of Clemens' wife Olivia, and the home was central to the lives of the Crane sisters: all three of Samuel and Olivia Clemens' children were born at Quarry Farm. In 1874, the Cranes built an octagonal library for Samuel Clemens and he was quite productive there writing major portions of his most enduring works under the pseudonym Mark Twain. Well versed in Shakespeare, Twain potentially consulted this work by Lanier for his own 1909 satire on the bard Is Shakespeare Dead? C Private Collection of Barbara and Ira Lipman