The Rare First Edition of the Book in Which the Subsequent Edition was a Primary Source-Book for Melville's "Moby Dick" MELVILLE, Herman. BEALE, Thomas. A Few Observations on the Natural History of the Sperm Whale. With an Account of the Rise and Progress of the Fishery, and of the Modes of Pursuing, Killing, and "Cutting in" that Animal, With a List of its Favorite Places of Resort. London: Effingham Wilson, 1835. Full Description:
Few Observations on the Natural History of the Sperm Whale. With an Account of the Rise and Progress of the Fishery, and of the Modes of Pursuing, Killing, and "Cutting in" that Animal, With a List of its Favorite Places of Resort.
London: Effingham Wilson, 1835.
The rare first edition, one of only 133 copies. The second edition edition was an important primary technical source book for Melville while he wrote Moby Dick. Octavo (8 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches; 210 x 135 mm). 58, [2, List of Subscribers] pp. With original front and back wrappers bound in. A few small engravings in the text.
Bound by Blackwell in blue half calf over marbled boards. Spine lettered in gilt. Original brown printed wrappers bound in and backed. Marbled endpapers. Some minor offsetting to title-page. Small bookseller listing tipped in to verso of wrapper. A folding newspaper clipping tipped in on a stub at the rear of the text. Previous owner's bookplate to front pastedown. Overall a very good copy of the rare book with the original wrappers.
"Herman Melville's copy of Thomas Beale's The Natural History of the Sperm Whale,[2nd edition] discovered in the 1930s then owned by successive private collectors until Houghton Library acquired it in 1960, contains the closest evidence available to the lost manuscript of Moby-Dick and illuminates more fully than any other archival resource Melville's use of source materials in his writing... In scale and complexity the significance of The Natural History of the Sperm Whale to the composition of Moby-Dick surpasses that of any other source book from which Melville is known to have drawn." (Introduction to Melville's Marginalia in Thomas Beale's The Natural History of the Sperm Whale. Steven Olsen-Smith).
Sabin 4108.
HBS 69546.
$10,000.
Price: $10,000.00
Item #69546