Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale.

MELVILLE, Herman.

$20,000.00

Item Number: 142813

New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1851.

First edition, first issue binding of Melville’s masterpiece. Octavo, original red variant 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, plain white endpapers. Issued in a single volume, in black, green, blue, red, purple, slate or brown cloth, gilt. The first state of the binding has a circular device at center of covers that is absent from the second state binding. Much has been made of whether the earliest copies bound should have orange-coated end papers, but in fact there is no priority between copies with orange, dark orange, maroon veined in gold, or marbled end papers. Of uncertain status are three copies that have been seen with plain white end papers, and a copy seen with yellow-coated end papers. Copies in bindings with beaded rope-like designs or Grolier-esque strapwork borders are very likely copies that survived Harper’s terrible fire of December 10, 1853, which destroyed 287 copies (212 were still unbound, in sheets). The first printing by Harper’s in 1851 numbered 2915 copies, approximately 300 copies were destroyed in a warehouse fire in 1853 and as late as 1854 copies of the first edition were still available from the publisher. A second printing of 250 copies was issued in 1855, and in 1863 the third printing of 253 copies was issued. In very good condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box made by the Harcourt Bindery. Rare and desirable, completely unrestored and in the rare variant publisher’s red cloth.

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).