Moby Dick; Or, The Whale.

MELVILLE, Herman.

Item Number: 142973

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851.

First edition, first issue binding of Melville’s masterpiece. Octavo, original cloth (BAL’s A grain), covers stamped in blind with Harper’s circular device at the center of the front panel within a heavy blind ruled frame, orange-coated endpapers. In very good condition with light rubbing to the extremities, some foxing as usual, bookplate of Henry B. Curtis to the front pastedown with the signature of H.L. Curtis above it, large bookplate of Richard Bayard Dominic now detached with adhesive remnants to the front free endpaper, presentation inscription in pencil to the front free fly-leaf from M. A. Holland to Henry L. Curtis dated October 23rd 1853. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell and chemise box made in the 1930s. A completely unrestored example of this great American novel.

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). 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. 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).