TWAIN, MARK. (Samuel Clemens) The Oxford 29-Volume Complete Works of Mark Twain. Oxford University Press, 1996. All Hard Covers in Matching Dust Jackets. SIGNED by 58 of the world's most famous authors, editors and literary figures of the 20th Century! See the DETAILED listing of signatories in the paragraphs below. ONLY 300 Signed Sets were ever produced – and this is Number 8 of 300. Be advised, that most sets have been broken up and sold as individual volumes over the last 20 years, to capitalize on the value of Twain books signed by the likes of Arthur Miller, Kurt Vonnegut, Gore Vidal, Toni Morrison, Frederik Pohl, Hal Holbrook, Walter Moseley, Willie Morris, Ursula K. Le Guin, E. L. Doctorow, George Plimpton, Erica Jong, Cynthia Ozick and other great writers.  You will not find a finer complete set at a better price anywhere – this pristine collection is a true modern literary rarity.

The Strand Bookstore in New York City has one UNSIGNED 29-Volume set for $450. Oxford University Press and Amazon have the 2009 PAPERBACK 29-Volume set available for $335. Just ONE OTHER SIGNED HARDCOVER SET is available on the Internet - Amazon has #194 of 300 sets for sale for $3500 - I am selling this pristine set for LESS THAN HALF that amount. MY SET is #8 of 300 - a far lower number in as-new condition in the publisher’s original shipping box and all internal packing materials in place. These books have NEVER stood on a shelf anywhere – only long enough for me to photography them for this listing - and have been kept in a dry, dust-free environment since I bought the NEW in 1996 from University Bookstore in Seattle, Washington.

Due to the large dimensions and VERY HEAVY weight of this set – 62 pounds – I contacted my local UPS Store and got a quote for shipping within the Continental United States (excluding Alaska and Hawaii – shipping to those states will cost considerably more). Because UPS will use an OVER-BOX with padding to protect the original container, and insure for the total Ebay sales value of the books, and will charge $50 for the packaging itself, the cost of sending this massive item via GROUND UPS is approximately $200. (This varies with how far distant you live from Seattle, but not greatly – about $25 more to ship to the East Coast compared to Chicago, for example according to UPS).  BUT I am treating shipping and handling as a FREE FLAT RATE while offering the books to you at the best deal going. If the buyer wants to PICK UP the books within the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue and surrounding area, I will REFUND the $200 it will cost me in shipping from the total price, in cash (requiring your signature on a receipt I will retain for my records), once the deal is done.

From the Oxford University Press Website describing this never-to-be duplicated collection (Since several prominent contributors, such as Kurt Vonnegut & Gore Vidal, George Plimpton and E. L. Doctorow are no longer alive) – listing the authors & noted scholars who SIGNED their respective volumes: 

The twenty-nine-volume Oxford Mark Twain is a major literary event. In addition to gathering together a superb collection of Twain's works, editor Shelley Fisher Fishkin has commissioned some of our most eminent living writers to introduce each volume with their personal insights and experiences of Twain. Readers will find, for instance, Toni Morrison reflecting on Huckleberry Finn, Kurt Vonnegut on Connecticut Yankee, Arthur Miller on Twain's Autobiography, Roy Blount Jr. on The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, E.L. Doctorow on Tom Sawyer, Willie Morris on Life on the Mississippi, Garry Wills on Christian Science, and Cynthia Ozick on The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays. Other writers include Gore Vidal, Ursula K. Le Guin, George Plimpton, Ward Just, Russell Banks, Bobbie Ann Mason, Malcolm Bradbury, Nat Hentoff, Sherley Anne Williams, Justin Kaplan, Walter Mosley, Erica Jong, Judith Martin ("Miss Manners"), David Bradley, Frederick Pohl, Mordecai Richler, Lee Smith, Anne Bernays, Charles Johnson, Fred Busch, and actor Hal Holbrook (who introduces Twain's collected speeches). And each volume includes an afterword by a noted scholar--such as Louis J. Budd, Victor A. Doyno, Leslie A. Fiedler, James A. Miller, Linda Wagner-Martin, Forrest Robinson, M. Thomas Inge, Fred Kaplan, Susan Harris, and David L. Smith--who place the work in the context of Twain's career and the literary and social climate of the time. In effect, the set gathers together an American literary who's who, all of whom reflect on what Mark Twain's work means to them as writers and scholars, and what he means to our literary history and to our culture as a whole. Taken together, these introductions and afterwords provide a major reevaluation of Twain, allowing readers to see his work in fresh ways. But of course the most important thing is the work itself. Here is the full range of Twain's remarkably prolific career, including The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Tramp Abroad, The Prince and the Pauper, Life on the Mississippi, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson, The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg, The Million Pound Banknote, Following the Equator, and Extracts from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven. Readers will find freewheeling parodies and burlesques, Twain's inimitable travel pieces, rich and complex portraits of childhood along the Mississippi, ghost stories and detective stories, irreverent lampoons of corrupt politicians, dark ruminations on the nature of humanity, and sharp-tongued editorials on the events of his day (such as Belgian imperialism in Africa or anti-Semitism in Vienna). Many of the works included here--such as Sketches, New and Old, A Tramp Abroad, The American Claimant, Is Shakespeare Dead? and Joan of Arc--have not been readily available for decades. Equally important, The Oxford Mark Twain includes all the original illustrations, some of which were drawn by Twain himself, and many of which have not been seen since the first editions went out of print.