frontispiece of Mark Twain] A week or so after printing had begun on the first edition, Mark Twain suggested to his publisher, Charles L. Webster, that they include this frontispiece, saying “I suppose it would help sell the book” (SLC to Webster, 8 Sept 84, NPV, in MTBus , 276). It is a photograph of a plaster casting of a clay bust sculpted from life by Karl Gerhardt (1853–1940), who had just returned from Paris after three years of art study financed by the Clemenses. (Neither Gerhardt’s clay original nor this plaster cast is known to survive; the only known bronze casting is in the Mark Twain House in Hartford.) Webster agreed to Mark Twain’s suggestion, even as he pointed out that it was too late to drop the original frontispiece (“Huckleberry Finn”) and that they would therefore “have to face your picture against it,” creating a double frontispiece like that in A Tramp Abroad (Webster to SLC, 13 Sept 84, CU-MARK; SLC 1880a; see the introduction, pp. 738–39). As Clemens had recommended, the photograph was reproduced by the heliotype photo-gelatine process, which was widely used for art reproductions (Jussim, 341; Pasko, 265). The heliotypes were separately printed, then inserted into each book and salesman’s prospectus before binding. This frontispiece appeared in successive printings of the first edition over the next six years, but was omitted from the second or “cheap” edition (1891–94) and all subsequent lifetime editions. Louis J. Budd has suggested that Mark Twain may have had more than helping sales in mind when he decided to include this image of himself: “did the bust say: Don’t confuse me totally with the ragged, naive, barely literate narrator?” (Budd 1985, 34). The first half of the manuscript found in 1990 tends to confirm the suggestion that Mark Twain was anxious about such a confusion. The first manuscript page bears the working title, “Huckleberry Finn | Reported by | Mark Twain” (see Manuscript Facsimiles, p. 565). In two later works written in Huck’s voice, Mark Twain found other solutions to the problem: “Tom Sawyer Abroad,” first published serially in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1893–94, was “By Huck Finn. Edited by Mark Twain,” and “Tom Sawyer, Detective,” first published in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in 1896, was “BY MARK TWAIN” but “as told by huck finn” (SLC 1893–94, 20; SLC 1896, 344).

frontispiece of Huckleberry Finn] In early April 1884, Clemens chose the young cartoonist Edward Windsor Kemble (1861–1933) to illustrate his book. Although Kemble’s sample drawings for the first chapters won him the job, Clemens was not entirely satisfied with the [begin page 375] drawings he then began to submit, roughly in sequence, for the book as a whole. He returned the cover design to his publisher on 7 May 1884, saying “All right & good, & will answer; although the boy’s mouth is a trifle more Irishy than necessary.” On 24 May, having seen the illustrations through chapter 12 and having insisted on some changes to them, Clemens again complained to Webster, concluding with a specific criticism of this frontispiece:

The original drawing for the frontispiece shows numerous and extensive revisions to the arms and face, at least some of which must have been Kemble’s effort to respond to Clemens’s criticism (see the introduction, p. 718). Kemble’s later drawings were more to Mark Twain’s satisfaction, however. On 11 June 1884 the author commented on the illustrations submitted for chapters 13 through 20: “I knew Kemble had it in him, if he would only modify hims his violences & come down to careful, painstaking work. This batch of pictures is most rattling good. They please me exceedingly” (SLC to Webster: 7 May 84, 24 May 84, 11 June 84, NPV, in MTBus , 253, 255–56, 260).