Fine Books and Manuscripts, Including Selections from the Collection of Barbara and Ira Lipman
Fine Books and Manuscripts, Including Selections from the Collection of Barbara and Ira Lipman
Lot Closed
December 16, 10:43 PM GMT
Estimate
1,800 - 2,400 USD
Lot Details
Description
Melville, Herman
Mardi: and a Voyage Thither. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1849
2 volumes, 8vo. 8pp. publisher's advertisement at rear of Vol. II. Publisher's brown cloth, covers blocked in blind, spines gilt-lettered, yellow endpapers. Housed in a brown cloth box.
First American edition of Melville's third novel
Unlike his first two novels, here Melville's sea-going narrative adopts metaphorical allegories and parallel commentary, themes he would explore further in Moby Dick, published two years later.
In a letter to John Murray dated 25 March 1848, which he wrote while arranging for the publication of the English edition, Melville described Mardi: "The work I shall next publish will in downright earnest [be] a 'Romance of Polynesian Adventure'—…the reiterated imputation of being a romance in disguise has at last pricked me into a resolution to show those who may take any interest in the matter, that a real romance of mine is no Typee or Omoo, & is made of different stuff altogether. [It] is no dish water nor its model borrowed from the Circulating Library" (Davis & Gilman).
REFERENCE
BAL 13658; Davis & Gilman 70; Sadleir, Excursions 225