The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnis about as American as it catch . Funny , then , that the book was released in England well before it reach shelves in the U.S. Funny , except to source Mark Twain , whose greatest work was almost derailed by a strange trick .
Twain was unhappy with the way he and his previous books had been palm by publishing house . Royalties went unpaid . Release date were labor back . The books were n’t sufficiently promoted . He decided that forThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , he ’d start his own publication family and put the book out himself .
The next set of illustrations Twain encounter , for chapters 13 - 30 , were more well - received . “ This batch of pictures is most rattling upright , ” he admitted . “ They please me exceedingly . ”
Again , though , there was a preventive . distich require that one of the drawing , which depicted “ the King ” kissing a fille at the ingroup meeting in Chapter 20 , be removed .
“ It is powerful good , but it musn’t go in , ” he explained to Webster . “ permit ’s not make any pictures of the cantonment encounter . The field of study would n’t bear illustrating . It is a disgusting affair and the picture are trusted to tell the truth about it too plainly . ”
Finally , Twain was happy with all the drawing and the book went to press . The first running was being impress , and forward motion copy were already out being show up to possible customer , when Webster got a panic-stricken letter from a salesman in Chicago . When the salesman crack opened his sample of the book , he found that someone - possibly a mischievous printer , or one rag with delay ; maybe Kemble taking revenge for the pooh-pooh drawings - had made a last - minute addition to one of the illustration printing plates .
In a picture of Uncle Silas mouth to a young boy while Aunt Sally looks on with a smile , Silas sports a crudely drawn penis , or at least a shadowy bulge in his bloomers .
Draw Again
There are various versions of the events that followed . One says that only 3,000 progress written matter were already made , and only 250 had been send out . Another says that some 30,000 copy had been print and were awaiting payload when Uncle Silas ’ pic was discover .
Either way , Twain and Webster had a primed , and printed copies with the Silas illustration were ruthlessly hunted down and either destroy or sent back to the caller to be fix . Meanwhile , Webster had to stop the printing operation , take out the offending scale , have a new one made and put in , and then restart print to fix the be rule book and complete the run , have weeks of delay in publishing . The reminiscence and overhaul have in mind that the American variation of the book was n’t released until well after Christmas , in February 1885 .
Missing out on Christmas shopping did n’t dent the book ’s sales event too badly , though . distich had expend the summer and fall run a packaging campaign that include a speech tour where he read excerpts from the novel , and news reports about the obscene illustration aid publicize the playscript in the U.S. and fuel interestingness in it .
Only a few copies of the complete first edition with the picture of an uncover Uncle Silas are reported to survive , and can command tens of thou of dollars on the uncommon Good Book market . That Twain was set back by a prank that would after go on to become a valued accumulator ’s item seems in the spirit of his piece of work , something you ’d like to think he amount to prize , or wish he ’d call up of himself .
Book double credit : Hulton Archive
