Hartford: The American Publishing Company, 1899-1907, each volume numbered 485 of 512 copies, attractively bound in art nouveau inspired full purple morocco, teg, fore-edges deckled, interior boards with inlaid lily decoration and gilt inner dentelles, spines of vols. XXIV and XXV with inlaid green morocco, cream silk moire endpapers, some pages uncut, some pages with "Clemens" watermarks, signed by Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain to limitation page of vol. I The Innocents Abroad (part I), signed by Brander Matthews to p. xxxiii of vol. I, manuscript page from Thoughts Suggested by Mr. Froude's "Progress" by Charles Dudley Warner bound in after limitation page of vol. IV Following the Equator (part II), vol. X The Gilded Age (part I) signed by co-author Charles Dudley Warner to limitation page, some frontispieces signed in pencil by artists, including Benjamin West Clinedinst, Charles Noel Flagg, and Frank V. DuMond, approx. 8-3/4 x 6-3/8 x 1-3/4 in.

Provenance: Private Collection

Note: The manuscript sheet differs slightly from the published work and reads: …revival there has been a neglect of training in the direction of skilled labor, and we all suffer more or less from cheap and dishonest work. But the way out of this is forward and not backward. It is a good sign ^(and not a stigma upon this "era of progress") that people desire education and not a a stigma upon this "era of progress". But this education must be of the whole man; he must be taught to work as well as to read, and he is, indeed, poorly educated if he is not fitted to do his work in the world. We certainly shall not have better workmen by having ignorant workmen. I need not say here, when a university is founded for the people, that the [?] education is that which will best fit a man for performing well his duties in life. If Mr. Froude, instead of his plaint…