Melville, Herman

Moby-Dick; or, the Whale. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851.



8vo (7 3/8 x 5 in.; 188 x 127 mm). Six-page publisher's advertisement at end; usual light foxing to title, but generally much less foxing and offsetting internally than is often found. Publisher's blind-stamped and ruled slate "A" cloth, spine title gilt, orange-coated endpapers, cloth tear to upper joint and two small tears to lower with some light staining on backstrip, corners bumped but gilt bright, ends unfrayed but some exposure of boards along bottom edge. In a blue half-morocco slipcase. 

John Morewood's copy, with his ownership signature to endpaper.

BAL 13664; Grolier, 100 American, 60; Sadleir, Excursions 229.

First American Edition. First binding, with blind-stamped circular publisher's device stamped on covers. This edition contains thirty-five passages and the "Epilogue" omitted from the preceding English edition.

Owned by a witness to his publishing contract for "The Whale." An association copy of the first rank. The "J. R. Morewood / Broadhall" is (unquestionably) the John Rowland Morewood (1821-1903), who, with his wife Sarah (1824-1863), became neighbors and close friends of Herman Melville. In 1850 they bought the old Melville homestead just outside of Pittsfield, Mass., with Melville himself purchasing the adjoining property ("Arrowhead"). Melville regularly used J. R. Morewood's well-stocked library, and in October 1851 when he signed the contract with the London publishers Bentley for "The Whale," (the title of the preceding English edition), he called upon his neighbor to be one of the two witnesses. The families remained close for years afterwards. In 1874 the Morewood's eldest son, William, married Herman Melville's niece Maria Gansevoort Melville, daughter of his deceased brother Allen.

In a letter of September 1851 to Sarah Morewood, Melville half-jokingly warned his vivacious friend about his forthcoming novel: "Don't you buy it ["Moby-Dick"] — don't you read it, when it does come out, because it is by no means the sort of book for you. It is not a piece of fine feminine Spitalfields silk — but is of the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables & hausers. A polor wind blows through it, & birds of prey hover over it" (Letters, ed. L. Horth, p. 206).