A MarketPlace of Ideas

The first book I ever read was read to me before falling asleep at night by my mother.  It was Huck Finn by Mark Twain.   You can find some of his works online to read at the following locations:

• Huck Finn  –  original handwritten manuscript is in the Mark Twain room of the Buffalo library
• Tom Sawyer
• Life on the Mississippi  –  Life on the Mississippi is recommended because of the more factual approach in the writing.

Auxiliary Information

• Steamboats Clemens served on
• Libravox  – public domain Huck Finn  audio book
• The 1st typeset printing of Huck Finn had a obscence joke typecast into it.  About 30,000 copies were printed before the joke was found.  If anyone has information on where I can buy one of these please contact me. The University of Virginia’s Barrett collection holds one of the few–perhaps the only–known remaining sales prospectus with the "mutilated cut".
• An 1884 / 1885 edition  – they are asking 15,000.   This one sold for 1800
• Huck Finn illustrations

The defaced illustration

First edition

Johnny No-Face was a legend in and around the area of my home town in eastern Ohio.  The story was that as a child he was flying a kite with wet string and it came down on top of some power lines.  The power surged up the string and blew his face off.  People would report seeing him walking by the lonely country roads of Darlington, Pensylvania.  I never saw him but the stories were colorful.  These stories were oldish in the 1970’s.