Dear All (esp. librarians and book collectors) - I am interested in locating a rare variant of a first edition of Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner's _The Gilded Age. _ Specifically, in the_Bibliography of American Literature_, Jacob Blanck discusses a first edition (@1873 or 1874) of _The Gilded Age_ which was a _forged forgery_. (It was sold by the American Publishing Company to look as if it was a purloined subscription book, when actually it was one the company produced themselves). He doesn't say which library in the United States has this variant copy. I have been checking in the most likely rare book libraries around the country and so far have come up with naught (including the Houghton, the Huntington, etc..) While Blanck indicates which libraries held first editions at the time of his writing (which is an admirable but incomplete list anyway) he doesn't indicate where he came across this specific variant and whose hands it might be in then or now. Has anyone seen an 1873 or 1874 edition that lacks the name of the illustrator White on the title page? According to Blanck, the fake forgery carries the statement 'Fully Illustrated From New Designs by Hoppin, Stephens, Williams, Etc., Etc.' Note absence of the name 'White.' See - Blanck, Jacob, comp. _Bibliography of American Literature._ Vol. 2. Bibliographic Society of America. New Haven: Yale University Press, entry #3357. 1955-1991. 184-185. Thanks so much for any assistance or advice you can share. Unless you think an answer would be of general interest to the list, I ask that you reply to me privately at [log in to unmask] Gratefully, Susanna Ashton Clemson University