Moby-Dick; or, The Whale.

New York: Harper & Brothers,, 1851. His masterpiece, in the original cloth First US edition of Melville's greatest work, in the first issue binding (BAL's "A" state, with the publisher's device on the covers and orange endpapers), a very smart copy notably free from any of the usual foxing. The US edition was the first to appear under the familiar title and contains 35 passages and the epilogue omitted from the slightly earlier British edition. Moby-Dick was originally issued in London earlier the same year, set from the New York sheets and titled The Whale. Now universally acclaimed, at the time the novel 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 his books and most of the copies remaining in stock" (DAB, vol. 12, p. 523). Copies in first issue bindings appear in black, blue, grey, green, purple-brown, red, and slate-coloured cloth, without any priority. As Sadleir notes, it was the custom of American publishers in the 1850s and 1860s to bind an edition in cloths of various colours, for the purpose of window display (see p. 221). Octavo. Original purple-brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt with decorative gilt border at head and foot, thick one-line border and central publisher's life-buoy device to covers in blind, orange coated endpapers, 6 pp. publisher's advertisements at rear. Housed in a custom burgundy morocco folding box. Spine cocked, ends and corners lightly worn, cloth rubbed with faint stain to rear cover, short closed tear to head of rear joint, first gathering discreetly reinserted, gutter before final gathering tender, but holding, occasional light spot to contents, else clean and sound within. A very good copy. BAL 13664; Grolier American 60; Johnson High Spots 57; Sadleir, Excursions in Victorian Bibliography, pp. 221 & 229.