APPRAISER: Debbie, you have a very generous aunt, it seems.

She sent you these books and some more, you were telling me?

GUEST: Yes, I get boxes from her about twice a year.

My uncle and her were both avid collectors.

APPRAISER: One of these books caught my eye, uh, as being quite a bit more important than the others, and I wonder if you might know which it is.

GUEST: The Mark Twain.

APPRAISER: Well, that's right.

This is a first edition, and it's quite a valuable book.

But more important, in a way, it's a very important book in... American literary history.

The copyright is 1884, and that's when the book was first published in London.

But it wasn't published in America until the next year, 1885.

Now, we know this is a first edition not only because of the date, but from several other points that I was able to look at.

If you can look in the... margin here, you see that little stub that runs along the title page?

GUEST: Uh-huh.

APPRAISER: Originally, this was printed with a date of 1884 on the title page.

And they realized the book wasn't going to be published in time for them to get it out that year.

So they cut out all of those title pages and glued in a title page with the correct date.

If this did not have this tipped-in title page, but a printed title page part of the book, it wouldn't be that first printing.

There are several other things that show that.

In the list of illustrations you can see, for page 88, it calls for an illustration, "him and another man."

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: When we turn to page 88, however... There's no illustration.

Here is the illustration, "him and another man" on page 87.

On page 57, there's something similar.

Near the, uh, about two-thirds of the way down, uh, there's a line that should read, "he ripped a hole in the bottom of it with the saw."

But in fact, it says, "he ripped a hole in the bottom of it with the was."

They misspelled the word saw.

That was also corrected.

Page 155 was misprinted in the first edition.

There's 156, there's 154, but 155 came out simply as 15.

And finally, on page 283... there was an illustration of... Huck Finn meeting, uh, Uncle Silas, Tom Sawyer's uncle, actually.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: And while the book was being printed, someone drew a naught rather a naughty addition... GUEST: (chuckles) APPRAISER: to, uh, Uncle Silas's trousers, uh, if I can put it that way.

So again, they had to cut out all of those pages, print a new one, and glue it in, which again, you can see in the margin here.

Now, oftentimes, a first edition of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn will have some of those points, but it's very unusual to find one that has all of them.

Now, you picked this out as the most important book.

What do you think it might be worth?

GUEST: I have no idea.

None.

I-I just, I, I can't even imagine.

APPRAISER: Well, as I say, it's very important in, uh, American literature.

And in this condition, which is quite good, a little bit worn at the top and the bottom of the spine, a collector would probably pay something in the range of $1,500 for it.

I would say, uh, in this particular box, your aunt was extra generous.

GUEST: (chuckles)