ISRAEL POTTER. His Fifty Years of Exile

London: Constable & Co., 1923. Rare First Edition in the Constable printing of Melville's Works. One of 750 copies only Large 8vo, publishers original blue cloth lettered in gilt and stamped in blind, t.e.g. x, 225 pp. A superior copy of this very scarce book, fine and bright and unusually well preserved, without wear or blemish, as pristine and essentially mint. RARE FIRST EDITION OF ISRAEL POTTER, HIS FIFTY YEARS OF EXILE, IN THE CONSTABLE COLLECTION, A HIGHLY REGARDED PRINTING OF MELVILLE'S WORKS.
Between 1875 and 1920 Melville had fallen deep into obscurity. William P. Trent's A HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1903, gives Melville but three pages out of 593, and Wendell and Greenough's A HISTORY OF LITERATURE IN AMERICA, 1904, gives him nothing at all. The author's star began to rise in 1921 with the publication of Weaver's biography.
The first volume of the collected works was published the following year and did much to expand American awareness of Melville's art. It stands alone as a truly important edition with the inclusion of all of Melville's work known at the time including 'The Poems' and 'Billy Budd,' both of which were here published separately for the first time. ISRAEL POTTER, His Fifty Years of Exile appears as Volume XI of the Standard Edition set.
Potter's story is according to Howes "purported autobiography, of dubious authenticity" and tells of the life of Potter an American injured at the Battle of Bunker Hill who was taken prisoner by the English, conveyed to England where he was forced to remain scratching a livelihood for himself and his family by crying "old chairs to mend" through the streets of London. With the assistance of Congress, he finally succeeded (at the age of 79) in returning to his native county in 1823 after 48 years of exile. According to Potter's account he had been a veteran of the Battle of Bunker Hill, a sailor in the Revolutionary navy, a prisoner of the British, an escapee in England, a secret agent and courier in France, and a 45-year exile from his native land as a laborer, pauper, and peddler in London.
This very scarce, and somewhat obscure, piece was read by a young Herman Melville, who eventually turned it into his only historical novel, "Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile", published in 1855. Melville's plot combines a number of Potter's claimed encounters, such as King George III, Horne Tooke, and Benjamin Franklin, with some he never had, such as Ethan Allen and John Paul Jones.