Beschreibung:

Title: Moby-Dick; or, the Whale Author: Melville, Herman Place: New York Publisher: Harper & Brothers Date: 1851 Description: xxiii, [1 blank], 634, [1 "Epilogue"], [1 blank] + [6] ad pp. + final blank leaf. 7¼x4¾, original “Type A” brown blind-stamped cloth, recased with spine coloring and most of gilt stamping retouched, original clay-orange endpapers and double flyleaves front and back; housed in a custom white vellum clamshell box. First American Edition, First State Binding. First American edition of one of the most important American novels of the 19th century. This edition follows the English edition ("The Whale") by a month and contains thirty-five passages and the "Epilogue" omitted in London. First binding state, in the publisher's brown “Type A” cloth, covers stamped in blind with heavy rule frame and publisher's circular device at center (front and back). “[Melville's] great book, Moby Dick, was a complete practical failure, misunderstood by the critics and ignored by the public; and in 1853 the Harpers' fire destroyed the plates of all of his books and most of the copies remaining in stock [only about sixty copies survived the fire]...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). BAL 13664; Grolier, 100 American, 60; Sadleir, Excursions in Victorian Bibliography, p. 339. Lot Amendments Condition: Scattered faint stains to volume exterior, restoration work to spine; 2" chip mended to top title page margin (not affecting lettering), occasional small dampstains, foxing; still a good and nice copy overall. An American classic, well-preserved in an elaborately produced vellum clamshell box. Item number: 170532