Benito Cereno.

MELVILLE, Herman. Illustrated by E. MvKnight Kauffer.

Item Number: 134028

London: The Nonesuch Press, 1926.

First Nonesuch Press edition of Melville’s classic sea story, which was initially serialized in Putnam’s Monthly in 1855 and subsequently appeared in his 1856 collection ‘The Piazza Tales’. Quarto, original cloth, illustrated with pictures hand-colored through stencils by E. McKnight Kauffer. One of 1650 numbered copies, this is number 833. In near fine condition.

A fictionalized account of a revolt on a Spanish slave ship captained by Don Benito Cereno, Melville's novella was first published in three installments in Putnam's Monthly in 1855. The tale, slightly revised, was included in his short story collection The Piazza Tales that appeared in May 1856. Much critical study has gone into the story's relation to the Toussaint Louverture-led slave rebellion of the 1790s in Saint-Domingue, as well as to Melville's use of one chapter from the historical Amasa Delano's Voyages of 1817, a source of such importance that "he must have written 'Benito Cereno' with Chapter 18 constantly open before him."