Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851) Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851) Image Zoom At the time of its first publication, Moby Dick was unlike anything ever before written in American fiction. A magisterial mish-mash of different argots, syntaxes, and linguistic styles, Herman Melville's (1819-1891) masterpiece incorporates and harmonizes the distinct tones of Yankee seamen, the seventeenth-century poetic language of John Milton (one of Melville’s biggest influences), and, perhaps most significantly, the power and gravity of the King James Bible. Scriptural themes also underlie the text, and as the reader follows Ahab's quest for revenge against the White Whale, Melville's revelatory narrative highlights the obsessive nature of man, humanity's constant—and ultimately futile—struggle to tame nature, the magnificence of God's Creation, and the paths from innocence to experience, and from damnation to deliverance. Item Views Click the thumbnails to open the slideshow: Note: To view these images in greater detail, see the Image Zoom tab.

Title Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851) Description xxiii, 634 p.; 20 cm. Creator Details - Moby-Dick, or, the Whale / - Biodiversity Heritage Library Biodiversity Heritage Library Melville, Herman, 1819-1891 1819 1891 Genre London :Harper & Brothers ;1851. 1851 Subjects Publisher's advertisements on final 6 p. BAL | 13664.

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 <topic>Ahab, Captain (Fictitious character)</topic> </subject> The 100 best novels: No 17 – Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851) | Books | The Guardian The 100 best novels: No 17 – Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851) Wise, funny and gripping, Melville's epic work continues to cast a long shadow over American literature Monday 13 January 2014 02.30 EST First published on Monday 13 January 2014 02.30 EST Share on Messenger Close On 5 August 1850 a party of writers and publishers climbed Monument Mountain in Massachusetts, during the American equivalent of a hike in the Lakes.

Among the literati on this excursion were Nathaniel Hawthorne, 46, author of The Scarlet Letter ( No 16 in this series ), a recently published bestseller (although a term not yet in use), and the young novelist Herman Melville, who, after a very successful debut (Typee), was struggling to complete an unwieldy coming-of-age tale about a South Seas whaler. Melville, who was just 31, had never met Hawthorne. But after a day in the open air, a quantity of champagne, and a sudden downpour, the younger man was enraptured with his new friend, who had "dropped germinous seeds into my soul". Rarely in Anglo-American literature has there been such a momentous meeting. It was the attraction of opposites. Hawthorne, from an old New England family, was careful, cultivated and inward, a "dark angel", according to one. Melville was a ragged, voluble, romantic New Yorker from mercantile stock. Both writers had hovered on the edge of insolvency and each was a kind of outsider. A fervent correspondence ensued.

Melville, indeed, became so infatuated that he moved with his wife and family to become Hawthorne's neighbour. Thus liberated, fulfilled, and inspired to say "NO! in thunder, to Christianity", he completed Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, in the spring of 1851. After an early reading of the manuscript, Hawthorne acclaimed it in a letter that remains, tantalisingly, lost. All we have is Melville's ecstatic response ("Your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God's..."), and, subsequently, a dedicatory declaration of Melville's admiration for Hawthorne's "genius" at the front of Moby-Dick (the first edition hyphenated the whale's name). So how homoerotic was this friendship? No one will ever know; it remains one of the mysteries of American letters. All we can say for certain is that, after climbing Monument Mountain, Melville adopted Hawthorne's idea of the "romance" as a mixed-genre, symbolic kind of fiction, and found his creative genius somehow released in the making of his new book.

And that is everything, because Moby-Dick is, for me, the supreme American novel, the source and the inspiration of everything that follows in the American literary canon. I first read it, inspired by my sixth-form English teacher, Lionel Bruce, aged about 15, and it's stayed with me ever since. Moby-Dick is a book you come back to, again and again, to find new treasures and delights, a storehouse of language, incident and strange wisdom. Moby-Dick is – among some fierce contenders which will appear later in this series – the great American novel whose genius was only recognised long after its author was dead. From its celebrated opening line ("Call me Ishmael") it plunges the reader into the narrator's quest for meaning "in the damp, drizzly November of my soul". Ishmael is an existential outsider. What follows is profoundly modern yet essentially Victorian, spanning 135 chapters. It is a literary performance that is exhilarating, extraordinary, sometimes exasperating and, towards its apocalyptic climax, unputdownable.

When Ishmael ships aboard the Pequod, his own quotidian search becomes inexorably joined to the darker quest, in which the captain of the doomed whaler, "monomaniacal Ahab", sets out to revenge himself on the great white whale that has bitten off his leg. This "grand, ungodly, godlike man", one of fiction's greatest characters – "crazy Ahab, the scheming, unappeasedly steadfast hunter of the white whale" – is not only pursuing his nemesis, a "hooded phantom", across the ocean's wastes, he is also fighting the God that lurks behind the "unreasoning mask" of the symbolic whale. Eventually, a whaling expedition from Nantucket – something experienced by the young Melville himself – becomes the story of an obsession, an investigation into the meaning of life. Next to Ahab and Ishmael, this massive novel is also rich in minor characters, from the tattooed harpooner Queequeg, the ship's mate Starbuck, Daggoo and Fedallah the Parsee – all told, a typically American crew.

And so a "romance" (Hawthorne's term) inspired by the true story of the Essex , a whaler that sank when it was attacked by a sperm whale in the Pacific in November 1820, becomes like a terrifying (at times, intolerable) sea voyage, culminating in a thrilling three-day chase in which Moby-Dick destroys the Pequod. Ishmael survives to tell his tale by clinging to Queequeg's carved coffin. Moby-Dick is usually described, as I've just done, as an elemental novel in which the outsider Ishmael is pitted against the fathomless infinity of the sea, grappling with the big questions of existence. That's not inaccurate, but there's also another Moby-Dick, full of rough humour, sharp comic moments, and witty asides. "Better sleep with a sober cannibal", says Ishmael, when forced to share a bed with the tattooed harpooner Queequeg, "than a drunken Christian." For those readers intimidated by the novel's bleak majesty, I think the humour offers a good way in.

A note on the text The pre-publication history of Moby-Dick has been the subject of endless scholarship, and provides a case study in Anglo-American co-publishing in the mid-19th century. Melville, who was short of money, actually made his first contract for a new novel, then known as The Whale, with the British publisher Richard Bentley. But he kept the printing in New York so he could oversee the proofs, and wrote to Hawthorne, from New York, that he must "work and slave on my 'Whale' while it is driving through the press". In fact, he was simultaneously working on revisions to his manuscript and proofreading what had been set. Meanwhile, Melville had still not yet settled a contract with an American publisher. As a result, the British edition would differ from the American in hundreds of small ways. The most important was the change of title. Rather late in the day, he wrote to Bentley: "Moby-Dick is a legitimate title for the book, being the name given to a particular whale who, if I may so express myself, is the hero of the volume." Bentley seems to have been slow to respond.

On 18 October, the English edition, The Whale, was published, in an edition of only 500 copies. Then, on 14 November, the American edition, Moby-Dick, (with its hyphenated title), finally appeared from Harpers. Almost as significantly, the US edition contained an "Epilogue", which explains Ishmael's miraculous survival and, thus, how the story of the great white whale came to be told. For some unknown reason, the epilogue is absent from the British edition. British reviewers were puzzled to read a book with a first-person narrator who apparently did not survive to tell the tale. Accordingly, the Spectator objected that "nothing should be introduced into a novel which it is physically impossible for the writer to have known: thus, he must not describe the conversation of miners in a pit if they all perish." Two other papers asked "How does it happen that the author is alive to tell the story?" The upshot was confusion, and poor English reviews. These, in turn, cast a shadow over the American reception of the novel. Melville's career never really recovered.

He told Hawthorne in 1856, "I have pretty much made up my mind to be annihilated." When he died, in 1891, Melville was virtually forgotten, with Billy Budd still in manuscript, unpublished. Today, Moby-Dick is, in the words of the Oxford Companion to English Literature, "the closest approach the United States has had to a national prose epic". Other essential Melville titles J.M.W. Turner's Unloved Late Paintings; or, The Whales UArts Offers Dual MFA Degree in Book Arts and Printmaking Joseph Mallord William Turner, “Whalers” (1845), oil on canvas, 36 1/8 x 48 1/4 in (courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art) Some days ago — never mind the count — having not much purpose in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and nothing in its galleries otherwise to interest me, I thought I would wander a little and found myself in the most watery part of the institution. There the sea rolled in haunting billows and from the luminous brushstrokes of J. M. W.

Turner arose the mighty distinctive bulk of the leviathan, the staggering whale itself. Turner’s Whaling Pictures has, in its one-room array, the four canvases on which Turner attempted to capture “that one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last,” as Herman Melville wrote in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851). (The first lines of which this author poorly borrows above.) The exhibition is the first to join the four paintings, each a tumultuous scene of floundering sperm whale hunts, the whalers’ boats tossed on rumbling waves where, sometimes, just perceptible in the riotous scenes, the silhouettes of the desperate prey appear. Installation view of ‘Turner’s Whaling Pictures’ (photo by the author for Hyperallergic) Joseph Mallord William Turner, “Hurrah! for the Whaler Erebus!

Another Fish!” (1846), oil on canvas, 35 1/2 x 47 1/2 ½ inches (courtesy the Tate, London) (click to enlarge) Nineteenth-century viewers of these paintings, created by Turner when he was in his 70s and exhibited between 1845 and 1846 at London’s Royal Academy, were baffled by the impressionistic style, which had the English painter’s famed light and reach for the sublime, but were more chaotic. According to the Tate , which holds three of the four paintings, a cartoon in the Almanack of the Month reflects the mocking reception with which the works were met. Turner is shown painting with a mop and an alternative title for “Hurrah! for the Whaler Erebus! Another Fish!” is offered: “Hallo there! — the oil and vinegar, — another lobster salad.” Poor Turner didn’t even have luck selling them off to whale oil mogul Elhanan Bicknell, who apparently took one home, only to be dismayed at the lowly watercolor marring the work.

He reportedly smeared the offending mixed media off with his handkerchief , returned the painting to Turner, and even after oil paint alterations would not buy it. Turner only sold one — the “Whalers” now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, acquired 120 years ago — and the rest went to Tate through a bequest upon his death in 1851. Melville faced his own battles for the acceptance of his nautical tome, which received negative reviews and only achieved success posthumously. Turner’s Whaling Pictures links the two in their reliance on Thomas Beale’s The Natural History of the Sperm Whale as a source (Turner likely never saw a live whale), and the possibility that Melville heard of Turner’s work while he was writing his book. The exhibition could also have linked them for their boisterous attempts to excite the public with the drama of the whale chase. Installation view of ‘Turner’s Whaling Pictures’ (photo by the author for Hyperallergic) Alongside the four paintings, a harpoon on loan from the South Street Seaport Museum hangs above a display of antique whale oil lamps, their fuel extracted from the cumbersome corpses of ill-fated cetaceans.

Whales were a late interest for Turner, his first known illustrations being 1830s watercolors, although he’d long been fond of shipwrecks and the wrathful destruction of the huge creatures fit with his vision of an ocean at once beautiful and dangerous. In an early chapter of Moby-Dick, Ishmael views a painting which could have been painted by Turner, with such “unaccountable masses of shades and shadows.” In “all these fancies,” the viewer finally “yielded to that one portentous something in the picture’s midst … . But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathan himself?” Maybe Melville never saw a whale as depicted by Turner, all blurred shadows haunting the more distinct ships, but he’s the audience the artist deserved. Even in the Romantic stylings of the painting is a suggestion of the mortal risks undertaken by the “blubber-hunters” in their attempt to spear this giant of the deep, whose mouth Melville once described as opening “beneath the boat like an open-doored marble tomb.” And in each painting, as in the final scene of Moby-Dick, rolls that sea like a great shroud.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, “Whalers” (1845), oil on canvas, 35 7/8 x 48 in (courtesy the Tate, London) Joseph Mallord William Turner, “The Whale on Shore” (1837), watercolor on paper (photo by the author for Hyperallergic) Whale oil lamps on view in ‘Turner’s Whaling Pictures’ (photo by the author for Hyperallergic) Joseph Mallord William Turner, “Wreck on the Goodwin Sands: Sunset” (1845), watercolor and graphite, with black chalk, on paper, 9 1/8 x 13 1/8 in (courtesy the Morgan Library and Museum) Installation view of ‘Turner’s Whaling Pictures’ (photo by the author for Hyperallergic) Installation view of ‘Turner’s Whaling Pictures’ (photo by the author for Hyperallergic) Herman Melville – Moby-Dick | Genius Album Bio 1 Contributor ? What is this? The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text.

It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something. To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines . Loading... Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by Herman Melville, first published in 1851. It is considered to be one of the Great American Novels. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab has one purpose on this voyage: to seek out Moby Dick, a ferocious, enigmatic white sperm whale. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab’s boat and bit off his leg, which now drives Ahab to take revenge. This video is processing – it'll appear automatically when it's done. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by Herman Melville, first published in 1851. It is considered to be one of the Great American Novels. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab.

Ishmael soon learns that Ahab has one purpose on this voyage: to seek out Moby Dick, a ferocious, enigmatic white sperm whale. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab's boat and bit off his leg, which now drives Ahab to take revenge. Moby-Dick | Uncyclopedia | Fandom powered by Wikia Publisher: Various Melville's Encyclopædia of Whales and Whaling ( Latin for "Melville's Encyclopaedia of Whales and Whaling") is an English - language encyclopaedia written by the American Herman Melville . First published in 1851 in London , the reference work is viewed as having the definitive word on all things related to whales and the whaling industry . Moby-Dick, the name of a whale sometimes prominent in the contents of Melville's Encyclopædia, has traditionally been an alternate title . Contents [ show ] History Cover art for Mocha Dick: or the White Whale of the Pacific, inadvertently revealing a critical deception: the whale is actually more grey than white . Several events in or during Melville's life influenced him to write a work on natural history, and in particular on whales and whaling.

For instance, after a career largely spent on school-teaching, he spent 18 months on a voyage that he later said began his life. This was on the whaling ship Acushnet, which he called "my Yale College and my Harvard ", presumably because they made him just as sick as did a sea voyage. Indeed, the most significant event in that voyage turned out to be his desertion from the ship, which led to adventures with natives of extremely remote islands . Melville later recorded these in his best-seller novels Typee and Omoo, viewed by contemporaries and by most modern literary critics as the high point of his fiction-writing career . Presumably that was what he meant when he said that his life began with that voyage, since whaling seems to consist mostly of looking for squirts of water and creatures that make them—not the most life-changing experience. The most bizarre of all inspirations, however, might be the allegedly successful harpooning of an albino sperm whale , Mocha Dick, named so because all of his spermaceti was supposed to have been replaced with caffè latte [1] .

Melville, being a tea drinker, thought this obsession with coffee absurd , and decided that it symbolised impeccably the futile nature of man's pursuit of the mysterious. These factors, combined with Melville's desire to branch out into non-fiction following Nathaniel Hawthorne 's extremely, extremely painfully detailed biography of 17th-century Bostonian Hester Prynne , ultimately led to the writing of Melville's Encyclopædia. Contents and features Articles Engraving of a whaleship at sea, from a 1979 edition of Melville's Encyclopædia. This image is highly inaccurate, since whaleships, while followed by sharks seeking the meat of a dead whale or by other whaleships desirous of a rendezvous, were not followed by a giant body of text saying "Whaleship at sea". The encyclopaedia consists of 42 articles, in the form of what may be considered essays by Melville attempting to tackle a certain aspect of whales, the industry out to exploit them, or the history of either.

Select editions are accompanied by wood engravings for readers who, rather than admire the masterfully crafted prose of Melville with its stylised language, extensive symbolism, and stark raving madness, would prefer to look at the pretty pictures . Subject matters treated include: While the 42 articles are obviously erudite , articulate , and comprehensive , they are arranged in a highly unconventional manner for a work of natural history knowledge . The arrangement is certainly not by alphabetical order , category , or even average customer review . Hidden narrative? Instead, the articles are inexplicably separated by large sections that seemingly have no relation to descriptions of whales or of the whaling business. When spliced together, these sections appear to form a frame narrative for the entire encyclopaedia, concerning a captain attempting to catch a white whale . While completely irrelevant to the rest of the Encyclopædia, we will nonetheless, in the interest of scholar ship , delve further into this inscrutable inclusion.

Encyclopaedic content As a matter of fact, the frame narrative itself also has titbits of whales and whaling; indeed, some of them may very well have been articles themselves were it not for their anecdotal nature, which is the only distinguishing factor between the articles and the narrative chapters. For instance, Melville has the narrator describe a whaler, Queequeg, who is native to a remote Pacific island: “ When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green sapling; even then, in Queequeg’s ambitious soul, lurked a strong desire to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or two. His father was a High Chief, a King; his uncle a High Priest; and on the maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable warriors. There was excellent blood in his veins—royal stuff; though sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity he nourished in his untutored youth.

” —"Ishmael", segment leading up to "Nantucket" Using the technique of immersive learning , Melville thus gives the reader a picture of savage Pacific islander life, hierarchy, and savageness that is completely factual and not at all racially insensitive in stereotypically portraying the noble savage . However, at least half of the narrative does not even contain this subtle form of education, and instead consists of idle philosophising, contemplation and character study. The sensible reader will realise that since the narrative is fictional, such drawn-out segments have no meaning to the overall work of the Encyclopædia and thus may be safely ignored. However, this article being an esoteric study of the work, we shall regrettably examine the rest of the narrative as well. Non-encyclopaedic content The remainder of Melville's Encyclopædia is the simple story of a monomaniac attempting to catch a whale, but laden with symbolic and philosophical tediousness . Set in contemporary (i.e.

1850s) Nantucket and Pacific waters—although the names of the characters mostly seem to establish a setting of the ancient Middle East and the Red Sea —the plot follows a whaling ship named after a doomed Native American tribe, and features its crew: Ishmael, the mysterious, tall, dark, and presumably handsome narrator of the novel. Of course, this last point is unknown since he scarcely explains why he's even in the story, let alone on the Pequod. "Ishmael" is the narrator of the story, and a former schoolteacher who boards the Acushnet Pequod out of a desire for adventure , and of questionable judgement since he boards a ship named after a doomed Native American tribe. His presence does not drive the story; he is an outright literature geek and is of little use aboard the voyage. In addition, his name signifies exiles, outcasts, and, in general, losers . All this considered, Ishmael's sole reason for existence, it may be safely said, was for Melville to insert himself into the story. Ahab is the captain of the Pequod, and believes that the White Whale is the focus of evil itself, largely because it tore his leg off.

He is also of questionable sanity, since he believes an occupational hazard to be possessed by the Devil . Another incident to substantiate his madness is his question, "is Ahab, Ahab?", since Ahab is, unfortunately but clearly, Ahab . Starbuck is the first mate of the Pequod, and was reportedly based on the man who harpooned Mocha Dick and made a fortune operating a coffee chain that was derived from the whale's latte and not named after a doomed Native American tribe . He serves as a foil to Ahab with the viewpoint that the White Whale is simply an innocent albeit unreasonable creature of nature . He is also of questionable sanity, since he still blindly follows a man who believes an occupational hazard to be possessed with evil. Despite being given the opportunity to kill Ahab and turn the ship around, Starbuck simply chickens out just so that Ishmael can wax poetic about life and death and revenge and the image of Ahab and Moby-Dick sinking together into the deep ocean, entangled together by Ahab's harpoon and passion for vengeance—all of which is completely irrelevant to whales and whaling .

Stubb and Flask are an A-list comedy duo on the level of Abbott and Costello , Fry and Laurie , and Laurel and Hardy , and are on the Pequod for no conceivable reason. Therefore, they are also of questionable sanity. The harpooners Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo and Fedallah are personifications of various racial stereotypes . This means that Melville is of questionable sanctity . In these sections, Melville follows extremely dramatic, exaggerated, poetic, and outright mad language: “ Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices! Bestow them, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble league . . . . Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful whaleboat's bow—Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick to his death! ” —Captain Ahab, segment between articles "The Mast-Head" and "The Whiteness of the Whale" The narrative as a whole is admirably written , and raises various salient metaphysical and otherwise philosophical points.

However, all of this bears no relevance to the main body of Melville's Encyclopædia and so, outside of the brief examination conducted in the past few sections, may be completely ignored. Melville's Encyclopædia today Melville's Encyclopædia has received strong criticism for becoming increasingly outdated . No revisions were ever made to the content after the original 1851 publication, which means that subsequent editions still fail to cover modern, relevant, prominent topics such as the scarce need for whale oil , the worldwide ban on commercial whaling , and very attractive ( possibly biased ) actresses who oppose international whaling and should definitely be discussed because they are very attractive . However, keeping Melville's Encyclopædia up to date no longer appears to be one of Melville's top priorities. Since the encyclopaedia's publication, Melville has since moved on to fiction novels and short story collections—a drastic shift from this non-fiction opus—and as late as January 2017 , appears to be a little lethargic . Market share of whaling encyclopaedias from the years 1853-2009.

Competition With the decline of whaling as a viable or legal commercial venture, Melville's Encyclopædia has seen little competition in the way of the whaling encyclopaedia market. Initially, the Encyclopædia Britannica attempted a venture into the market in 1890 with the Encyclopædia Balaenarum (Latin for "Encyclopaedia of Whales"), a 13-volume encyclopaedia with far more thoroughly researched and sensibly arranged articles compared to those in Melville's Encyclopædia; however, its market share never rose above 10%, and the venture finally folded after the management realised how very few captains wanted to bring a 13-volume encyclopaedia on board, let alone read it . Today, Melville's Encyclopædia remains a dominant force, consistently maintaining 100% market share in the US and UK whaling encyclopaedia markets. Nevertheless, the Encyclopaedia of Wales have admitted that an estimated 14.3% of their customers each year buy the publication believing it to be about whales [2] .

Alternative interpretation In the early 20th century, modernist literary critics began to examine Melville's Encyclopædia as a work of art—not in the sense that Marcel Duchamp makes a urinal a work of art and then laughs at everyone who does treat it like a work of art, but in the sense that works of art composed as works of art are seen as works of art. In fact, most people today view Melville's Encyclopædia not as an expertly researched and thoroughly written reference work on the whaling industry, but rather as one of the Great American Novels . Many—though fortunately not all—schools have switched from using the text as an intermediate textbook in whaling courses, to using it as a novel exemplary of American Romanticism. Obviously, however, all of this is in grave error ; such people have made the mistake of confusing the frame narrative for the main portion of the text . Most literary critics, however, agree that the narrative was an unnecessary attempt to transition between the articles, in an experimental encyclopaedic format that was never seen again.

Melville's chief aim in writing the text, after all, was to be educational and definitive , and to record history as he saw it; and that such a goal would even dare to be attempted through fiction would be something only romantics would argue for . See also Moby Dick, First Edition - AbeBooks Moby Dick, First Edition Results (1 - 16) of 16 Sort By Published by Harper & Brothers, New York (1851) Used Hardcover First Edition Destination, Rates & Speeds Item Description: Harper & Brothers, New York, 1851. First edition. Octavo, original publisher's brown cloth. A near fine condition with some of the usual light foxing and light shelfwear to the spine tips. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. A completely unrestored example to this cornerstone. A superior example. Initially panned by critics and readers when published in 1851, "in the 20th century Moby Dick would be rediscovered and acknowledged as possibly the greatest of all American novels" (Chronology of American Literature).

Bookseller Inventory # 4454 Published by New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851 (1851) Used Hardcover First Edition Destination, Rates & Speeds Item Description: New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851, 1851. First American Edition; preceded slightly by the English edition, although this edition has numerous additions to that text. PublisherÕs green cloth; stamped in gilt and in blind; first binding, although this cataloguer has never seen either of the later two bindings in the wild. Some fading and wear; foxed (as seems inevitable); faded contemporary ownerÕs inscription on the front free endpaper; bookplate of author and collector Carolyn Wells. The final 50 or so leaves are marginally waterstained at the lower corners, far from any text; bottom corners of the three advertising leaves slightly chipped, likewise not near any printing. Overall, a good copy of a book often found repaired, rebacked, restored or otherwise suffering from previous ownersÕ good or bad intentions. In a custom quarter-morocco clamshell box (corners frayed).

Bookseller Inventory # 34622 Published by Harper & Brothers (1851) Used Hardcover First Edition Destination, Rates & Speeds Item Description: Harper & Brothers, 1851. Hardcover. Book Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. First American Edition; first binding; with the original cloth bound in blue from the publisher. In the Melville bibliography, this would be the blue "A" cloth, the true first American edition and most desirable copy for a collector. Many copies of this first edition were burned in a fire, and the remaining copies tend to be re-bound. This rare first edition is one of the surviving copies still in the original cloth, untouched. The book has some foxing mainly effecting the first few pages and the endpapers. The front flyleaf has a small piece of the corner missing, not effecting any lettering. The boards have some wear to the corners and edges. The spine ends have some light fraying. Otherwise, the book is quite lovely. Besides the previous owner's early signature, the book is clean. There is no writing, marks or bookplates in the book.

The binding is tight, and the book is one of the nicer copies that you will find on the market with the original first printing binding. Overall, a collectable copy of this first edition housed in custom clamshell for preservation. We buy Melville First Editions. Bookseller Inventory # ABE-457533586 Destination, Rates & Speeds Item Description: 1851. First Edition. "MELVILLE, Herman. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. New York: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, 1851. Octavo, original purple-brown cloth, original orange-coated endpapers. Housed in custom cloth chemise and half morocco slipcase. $46,000.First American edition, in first binding, of Melvilleï¿½s rare classic. An intriguing association copy belonging to a member of the Macy family, inscribed on the front free endpaper: "A.P. Charles for J.M.

Macy."Arguably the greatest single work in American literature, Moby-Dick was initially "a complete practical failure, misunderstood by the critics and ignored by the public; and in 1853 the Harper's fire destroyed the plates of all his books and most of the copies remaining in stock (only about 60 copies of Moby-Dick survived the fire) [Nevertheless,] Melville's permanent fame must always rest on the great prose epic of Moby-Dick, a book that has no equal in American literature for variety and splendor of style and for depth of feeling" (DAB). This American edition contains 35 passages and the Epilogue omitted from the English edition (The Whale, published in October of the same year; the first American edition appeared in November). Complete with six pages of advertisements at rear, covers blind-stamped with heavy rule frame and publisher's circular device at center, orange-coated endpapers. This copy with double flyleaves at front and triple flyleaves at rear. BAL 13664. The Macy family was well-known in Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, and a J.M.

Macy is recorded in the Historical Society records; he would have been 47 in 1851. (There is also a branch of the Macy family that moved to North Carolina in the 18th century; given that we only have the recipient's initials rather than a full name, it is impossible to state with certainty that the recipient was of the Nantucket Macys, though it seems likely given the subject matter.) Rowland Hussey Macy, founder of the department store chain, for example, was the fourth of six children born to one branch of this family on Nantucket.

(As a young man, he worked on the whaling ship Emily Morgan and had a red star tattooed on his hand, which became a feature of his store's logo.) Melville is also known to have used Obed Macy's 1835 History of Nantucket as a reference while writing Moby Dick, mentioning Obed Macy by name in Chapter 35, calling him "the worthy Obed" and "the sole historian of Nantucket."With a note in pencil at the end of the text, possibly that of the recipient: "A precious medley of transcendental stuff, superstitious notions, and whale oil. Can such a work live? Take out the notes on the sperm whale, which seem exaggerated, and what is left? Nov. 30/51." BAL suggests November 15, 1851, as the date of publication.Upper blank corner of title page with expert repair; faint marginal dampstain in lower gutter through text. Text block neatly recased in original binding, backstrip strengthened, with restoration to cloth at spine ends and corners, gilt brightened. A skillfully restored copy with an intriguing contemporary association.".

Bookseller Inventory # 106966 Destination, Rates & Speeds Item Description: Harper & Brothers, New York, 1851. Hardcover. Book Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. First American Edition. A book with well detailed literary significance. Copies always available, but seldom seen with any sort of additional historical significance. Jim Morrison certainly qualifies as a significant figure, influencing countless artists and fans across the globe to this day. A poetic spirit that made an important mark on Rock n' Roll, he loved reading and often spoke of its power. This copy was with him during his last days in Paris (removed from his flat after his untimely death and kept with his long time girlfriend's family). One can certainly deduce that he handled this copy a fair amount of time and definitely treasured it as a key book in literary history.**** Original publisher's brown cloth, complete with 6 pp publisher's ads at rear. Re-backed with original spine laid down, some wear here and there particularly to spine ends, scattered light foxing but overall a very sound, tight copy and remarkably clean inside.

Owner signature at front endpaper dated 1890.**** Prettier copies are out there, and even though I live in LA or maybe because I live in LA, I'll take the girl with depth of soul over the ubiquitous superficially attractive ones.*** Why do we pursue such an odd course of action as book collecting? To be the temporary safe keepers of history and something meaningful to our trifling existence. As a friend and all around good guy once told me; it's about the vibrations of history. When you hold this book, you may find it difficult to keep your hands steady. If you're in the market for Moby Dick or generally a flat out cool book, then why not pick up a copy owned by someone that had a hell of an influence on millions?. Bookseller Inventory # ABE-17940704199 Destination, Rates & Speeds Item Description: Harper & Brothers, New York, 1851. First edition, first issue binding. Octavo, original publisher's cloth, original orange endpapers. An unrestored very good example with some of a few small chips to the foot of the spine and some of the usual foxing.

Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. A completely unrestored example to this cornerstone in American literature. Initially panned by critics and readers when published in 1851, "in the 20th century Moby Dick would be rediscovered and acknowledged as possibly the greatest of all American novels" (Chronology of American Literature). Bookseller Inventory # 4661 Destination, Rates & Speeds Item Description: Harper and Brothers, New York, 1851. First Edition. A firm, unsophisticated copy of Melville's masterpiece, preceded by a three-volume London edition a month earlier. The American edition was 3000 copies, but the book sold poorly, and many unsold copies were reputedly destroyed in a warehouse fire in 1854. BAL 13664. GROLIER AMERICAN 60. Octavo (19cm); Blanck's first binding of slate A cloth with embossed circular publisher's device to front and rear boards; [i-xxiv], [1]-[635] + 6pp. publisher's ads. Original orange-coated endpapers. A good, unrestored copy.

Spine has faded to tan, with consequent dulling to gilt; small losses to cloth at spine ends, joints and board edges, with one small, old inexpert repair to cloth at base of spine. Front free endpaper with a ca. 1/2" abrasion, apparently the result of an ill-advised erasure, which has further suffered an undignified later attempt at re-coloring. Scattered foxing within, but text generally fresh and tight. Bookplate of Miriam Dyer-Bennett to front pastedown. In custom morocco and marbled paper clamshell box. Bookseller Inventory # 17039 Destination, Rates & Speeds Item Description: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York, 1851. Cloth. Book Condition: Very Good. First Edition. First Edition, 1851, in the original first state slate blue cloth binding with publisher's circular device stamped front and rear, gilt stamped spine. i- xxiii, 635 pages, plus 6 pages of ads.

One of an edition of 2,915, with 2,230 bound at the time of publication, 287 ( 212 still unbound ) of which were destroyed by fire on Dec.10, 1853.(ABAA). Boards worn at corners and bottom edge, missing the front orange/brown end page, bit of a wrinkle and spotting to cloth bottom corner front board, light foxing throughout, cloth at top of spine 2 tiny tears (1/16"). Original owner's signature, dated Dec. 10, 1851 front end page. Overall a Very Good copy of this towering classic of American literature, totally unsophisticated and free from any efforts at restoration. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Bookseller Inventory # 005747 Destination, Rates & Speeds Item Description: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York, 1851. First Edition. FIRST BINDING, with the publisher's circular device blindstamped on the front and back board.

Publisher's original red cloth with gilt-stamped spine, expertly rebacked with the loss only of a little of the decorative rule at the spine tips. There are a few light residual creases to the cloth on the spine, and a faint, semi-circular dampstain on the front board. Internally, the name R. G. Stockbridge is twice stamped in ink on the front free endpaper and there is some scattered foxing, mostly light, a little heavier on the flyleaves and preliminaries. Complete with the original brown-orange endpapers, the six pages of terminal publisher's ads, a terminal blank, and double flyleaves at both the front and back. A bright, Very Good copy in the appealing red cloth binding. BAL 13664. Book. Bookseller Inventory # 000122 Destination, Rates & Speeds Item Description: NY: Harper & Brothers, (1851), 1851. Soft cover. Book Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. 1st Edition. Very first appearance of Moby Dick in any form: Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XVII, October, 1851, Vol.

III, the opening chapter of the classic, here entitled, The Town-Ho's Story. Further explanation provided as, From 'The Whale,' the title of a new work by Mr. Melville, in the press of Harper & Brothers, and now publishing in London by Mr. Bentley. Beautifully presented in a custom designed heavy plexiglass free-standing, double-sided frame to enhance the display of this unique literary collectible. Bookseller Inventory # ABE-4280141551 Destination, Rates & Speeds Item Description: Harper and Brothers, 1851. Hardcover. Book Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. 1st Edition. Half leather binding over textured floral patterned cloth. Volume III, June to November. A handsome volume, which contains the story "Town's Ho" by Herman Melville, which would later become Chapter 54 in Moby Dick. Contains the first of any material from Moby Dick to ever be published. In Good+ Condition. Contents firmly bound. Former owner name penned to front free end paper, and in pencil on title page. No marking in text, though pages show heavy foxing throughout. Boards show rubbing and edge wear.

Solid binding, with beautiful raised bands and gilt stamping at spine still strong. An impressive volume of historical note. Bookseller Inventory # 140905080 Destination, Rates & Speeds Item Description: Harper & Brothers, New York, 1851. Hardcover. Book Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. "Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume III June to November, 1851". In this book is Herman Melville's "The Town-Ho's Story", in which the first mention of Moby Dick is made. This is the first appearance of any part of Moby Dick in print in America. "Moby Dick" went on to be published in its entirety the fall of 1851. Published by Harper & Brothers, New York, 1851. Illustrated with black and white drawings throughout. The book measures 6.25" x 9.75", 864 pages. Bound in its original 3/4 morocco over pebbled boards. Speckled fore-edges with silk bookmark laid in. The book is in very good to very good minus condition. Minor shelf wear to the boards and spine.

Embossed seal on front endpaper. Scattered foxing throughout the textblock. The binding is tight. A protective mylar cover is included for protection and display. Please view the many other rare titles available for purchase at our store. We are always interested in purchasing individual or collections of fine books. Inventory # (E4-33). Bookseller Inventory # 001627 Destination, Rates & Speeds Item Description: published 1851 by Harper & Brothers, 1851. six months' issues bound in one volume, includes "The Town-Ho's Story" by Herman Melville (pp. 658-665) "From 'The Whale' the title of a new work by Mr. Melville, in the press of Harper and Brothers, and now publishing in London by Mr.

Bentley," leather spine and corners, raised bands, 864 total pages, b/w engravings; binding in good-minus condition, text block or internals in very good condition, wear to top of spine, light wear to edges of spine plus 3 inch tear to one edge of spine; Bookseller Inventory # 33491 Destination, Rates & Speeds Item Description: published 1851 by Harper & Brothers, 1851. six months' issues bound in one volume, includes "The Town-Ho's Story" by Herman Melville (pp. 658-665) "From 'The Whale' the title of a new work by Mr. Melville, in the press of Harper and Brothers, and now publishing in London by Mr.

Bentley," leather spine and corners, raised bands, 864 total pages, b/w engravings; binding in good-minus condition, text block or internals in very good condition, wear to top of spine, light wear to edges of spine plus 3 inch tear to one edge of spine; Bookseller Inventory # 34905 Moby-Dick published - Nov 14, 1851 - HISTORY.com Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 1851, Moby-Dick, a novel by Herman Melville about the voyage of the whaling ship Pequod, is published by Harper & Brothers in New York. Moby-Dick is now considered a great classic of American literature and contains one of the most famous opening lines in fiction: “Call me Ishmael.” Initially, though, the book about Captain Ahab and his quest for a giant white whale was a flop. Herman Melville was born in New York City in 1819 and as a young man spent time in the merchant marines, the U.S. Navy and on a whaling ship in the South Seas.

In 1846, he published his first novel, Typee, a romantic adventure based on his experiences in Polynesia. The book was a success and a sequel, Omoo, was published in 1847. Three more novels followed, with mixed critical and commercial results. Melville’s sixth book, Moby-Dick, was first published in October 1851 in London, in three volumes titled The Whale, and then in the U.S. a month later. Melville had promised his publisher an adventure story similar to his popular earlier works, but instead, Moby-Dick was a tragic epic, influenced in part by Melville’s friend and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, neighbor, Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose novels include The Scarlet Letter. After Moby-Dick‘s disappointing reception, Melville continued to produce novels, short stories (Bartleby) and poetry, but writing wasn’t paying the bills so in 1865 he returned to New York to work as a customs inspector, a job he held for 20 years. Melville died in 1891, largely forgotten by the literary world.

By the 1920s, scholars had rediscovered his work, particularly Moby-Dick, which would eventually become a staple of high school reading lists across the United States. Billy Budd, Melville’s final novel, was published in 1924, 33 years after his death. Related Videos About | Moby Dick Big Read Podcast Feed About Moby-Dick is the great American novel. But it is also the great unread American novel. Sprawling, magnificent, deliriously digressive, it stands over and above all other works of fiction, since it is barely a work of fiction itself. Rather, it is an explosive exposition of one man’s investigation into the world of the whale, and the way humans have related to it. Yet it is so much more than that. It is a representation of evil incarnate in an animal – and the utter perfidy of that notion. Of a nature transgressed and transgressive – and of one man’s demonic pursuit, a metaphorical crusade that even now is a shorthand for overweening ambition and delusion.

Out of all this, Herman Melville created a work of art as unique as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, as mythic as Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner – it is a true force of nature, set in a century that challenged every tenet of faith that had been held until then. Melville’s book – is it barely a novel – exceeds every expectation of a literary work. It bursts out of its covers with the enormity of its subject – as if the great White Whale itself were contained within. Now, in the 21st Century, a century and a half since it was first conceived and launched onto a misbelieving world, Moby-Dick retains its power – precisely because we are still coming to terms with it, and what it said. Incredibly prophetic, it foresaw so many of the aspects of the modern world with which we deal with. The abuse of power and belief; of nature and the environment; of the human spirit. It deals with art and artifice and stark reality – in an almost existential manner. It is truly a book before its time – almost ancient myth, as much as futuristic prophesy.

In the spring of 2011, artist Angela Cockayne and writer Philip Hoare convened and curated a unique whale symposium and exhibition at Peninsula Arts, the dedicated contemporary art space at Plymouth University, under the title, Dominion. Inspired by their mutual obsession with Moby-Dick and with the overarching subject of the whale, they invited artists, writers, musicians, scientists and academics to respond to the theme. The result was an enthusiastic response which evidently could not be contained within the physical restrictions of a gallery space and a three-day symposium. ‘I have written a wicked book’, said Melville when his novel was first published in 1851, ‘and I feel as spotless as the lamb’. Deeply subversive, in almost every way imaginable, Moby-Dick is a virtual, alternative bible – and as such, ripe for reinterpretation in this new world of new media.

Out of Dominion was born its bastard child – or perhaps its immaculate conception – the Moby-Dick Big Read: an online version of Melville’s magisterial tome: each of its 135 chapters read out aloud, by a mixture of the celebrated and the unknown, to be broadcast online in a sequence of 135 downloads, publicly and freely accessible. Copyright: Peninsula Arts, Plymouth University. The Moby-Dick Big Read is not for profit and cannot be sold, either as a whole or in part, without permission from Peninsula Arts, Plymouth University, UK. 1000+ images about Moby Dick on Pinterest | Whales, The whale and Book covers Pinterest • The world’s catalog of ideas Moby Dick "There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seems to speak of some hidden soul beneath." 53 Pins59 Followers

Question: Which 1851 novel has the alternative title ‘The Whale’?
Answer: Moby Dick