Moby Dick, or the Whale by Melville, Herman | illustrated by Rockwell Kent - 1930

London: Cassell & Company | printed at the Lakeside Press (Chicago), 1930. Hard Cover. Very Good binding. Octavo. xxxi, [1], 822, [6] pp., illus. As issued, in publisher's black cloth, lacking dust jacket. Binding rubbed and hinges a trifle loose; nevertheless, it presents fairly well. Contemporary gift inscription on the front free endpaper dated 1936, otherwise, internally clean. Three asterisks stamped beneath the imprint on the title page--a stamp seen on other, but not all copies of the Cassell edition, nevertheless likely from the publisher. This appears to be the first English edition, though the binding does not have the title stamped in gilt on the front cover as seen in other examples.

Tanselle, in his A Checklist of Editions of Moby-Dick, 1851-1976, writes of the first, quarto edition of Kent's work: "The most elaborate physical presentation which had been accorded to Moby-Dick up to this time, and one of the finest examples of bookmaking to found among all the editions of his work. Kent's illustrations are now perhaps the best-known illustrations for Moby-Dick and are certainly among the most effective" (from Tanselle, No. 17). And indeed, Kent's illustration is singular and captured in this present Cassell edition (Tanselle, No. 18a) which was printed by the Lakeside Press, after a second or trade edition in a reduced-size, one-volume format (as here) was printed for Random House.