Signed book: Liber Scriptorum: The First Book of the Authors Club. Limited edition (#52/251). NY: De Vinne Press, 1893. Leatherbound hardcover, 9.5 x 13, 588 pages. A compilation of 109 short stories, poems, and essays, each signed at the conclusion of each story or poem by the respective individual author. Most notably Samuel Clemens, signing as “Mark Twain,” who contributed “The Californian’s Tale,” and Theodore Roosevelt, who contributed “A Shot at a Bull Elk.” Signers are: Henry Abbey, Felix Adler, Henry Alden, O. Cyrus Auringer, Marcus Benjamin, Poultney Bigelow, James Thompson Bixby, Alexander Black, John Boner, Arthur Bostwick, Richard Bowker, Hjalmar Boyesen, James Bridge, Elbridge Brooks, Noa Brooks, Clarence Buel, Nicholas Butler, William Carey, Will Carlton, Andrew Carnegie, William Henry Carpenter, Edward Cary, Julius Chambers, John Denison Champlin, John Cheney, William Church, Samuel Clemens, Frank Clendinen, Titus Coan, Alban Conant, Moncure Conway, Theodore Low De Vinne, Maurice Egan, Edward Eggleston, George Eggelston, Henry Elliot, George Ellwanger, William Foulke, Harold Frederic, William Gibson, Richard Gilder, Daniel Gilman, Parhe Godwin, Solomon Griffin, Arthur Hardy, Henry Harland, John Hay, William Henderson, Ripley Hitchcock, Bronson Howard, William Howells, Laurence Hutton, Rossitor Johnson, Charles de Kay, William Keese, James Kenyon, David Bennett King, Leonard Kip, Joseph Kirkland, Thomas Knox, Henry Krehbiel, George Parsons Lathrop, Walter Learned, Percival Lowell, James Ludlow, Hamilton Mabie, William McElroy, Albert Mathews, Brander Matthews, William Starbuck Mayo, Theodore Mead, Edwin Morse, James Morse, Charles Norton, Edgar Wilson Nye, Bernard O’Connor, Duffield Osbourne, Raymond Perrin, Charles Phelps, George Pond, Horace Porter, David Law Proudfit, George Raymond, Theodore Roosevelt, Josiah Royce, Clinton Scollard, Horace Scudder, Howard Seely, F. Hopkinson Smith, Munroe Smith, John Spalding, Edmund Stedman, William Stillman, Frank Stockton, Francis Stoddard, Oscar Straus, Stephen Thayer, Daniel Greenleaf Thompson, Henry van Dyke, John Van Dyke, Edward Van Zile, William Ward, George Waring, Jr., Charles Warner, Charles Webb, John S. White, Charles Whiting, Francis Williams, and William Young. Mostly separated front cover, moderate surface wear and marks, and some surface loss to covers and spine, otherwise very good condition. The inside of the book rates fine, as most of the flaws are cosmetic to the covers and spine. Most of these books were taken apart for the autographs. RRAuction COA.
