Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant

(Mark Twain's publishing firm), volume I published in December 1885 and volume II in 1886, two octavo volumes of 584 and 647pp, illustrated with more than fifty engravings and maps plus several folding facsimiles, including a facsimile of the terms of Lee's surrender, in Grant's own hand, printed on yellow paper in volume II. The set was sold exclusively by subscription, through some ten thousand door-to-door canvassing agents, rather than through bookstores; order forms bound into the salesmen's prospectuses recorded five available bindings -- cloth, sheep, half morocco, full morocco, and tree calf -- with the standard trade issue in dark green cloth, gilt-stamped on both covers with a circular medallion reproducing the gold medal Congress awarded Grant on December 17, 1863, for the Mississippi River campaign