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Herman
Melville’s Moby-Dick: The Greatest American Whaling
Story
Herman
Melville (1819-1891).
On
December 30, 1840, at the age of 21 years, Herman Melville signed
the shipping articles for a whaling voyage to the Pacific Ocean
aboard the ship Acushnet of Fairhaven, MA, Valentine Pease,
master. The vessel set sail down the Acushnet River estuary on
January 3, 1841, past the great wharves of New Bedford, the then
whaling capitol of the world, and out into the North Atlantic.
This author of genius was being carried off on the voyage that
would inspire one of the greatest works of literature in the American
language.
He endured eighteen months at sea. He had little formal education
but a background rich in adventure. As the character Ishmael says
in Moby-Dick, ". . . a whale ship was my Yale College and
my Harvard." In writing his novel, Melville drew primarily on
what he had learned at sea. While on the Acushnet, he met Owen
Chase during a gam (exchange of visits between whaleships). Chase
gave him a written account of his father's experiences on the
Ship Essex, which was sunk by a whale. "The reading of this wondrous
story on the landless sea, and so close to the very latitude of
the shipwreck, had a surprising effect upon me," Melville later
wrote.
The
Book Itself: Moby-Dick
was first published in London under a different title before
its publication in New York. The following bibliographic descriptions
of the first editions are quoted directly from G. Thomas Tanselle,
A Checklist of Editions of Moby-Dick, 1851-1976 (Evanston
and Chicago, 1976), p. 8.
1.
The Whale. London: Richard Bentley, 1851 3 vols. (viii,
312; iv, 303; iv, 328 pp.) Published October 18, 1851, at a guinea
and a half, in an edition of 500 copies. Bentley, the foremost
publisher of the "three-decker," gave The Whale and unusually
elaborate physical dress: deep-blue cloth covers, and white spines
decorated with gold whales (unfortunately they were right whales,
not sperm whales like Moby Dick). It is difficult to understand
why he gave such lavish treatment to a work which was so different
from typical three-decker fiction and for which he expected small
sales. Probably about a third of the edition was bound this way,
for Bentley later covered some sets with ordinary brown and purple
cloth and still had sheets available in 1853 for his one-volume
issue. All copies of the Bentley edition are thus from the same
impression, but they can occur (1) in three volumes with blue
and white cloth and gold-stamped whales on the spines, (2) in
three volumes with brown or purple cloth and no whales on the
spines, and (3) in one volume with red cloth and cancel title
pages dated 1853.
2.
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. New York: Harper and Brothers,
1851. xxiii, 635 pages. Published probably on November 14, 1851,
at $1.50, in an impression of 2, 915 copies. The Harpers presented
the work as a single bulky volume, covered with various colors
of cloth (red, blue, green, purple, brown or black) and bearing
a blind-stamped life preserver device on the front and back covers.
Although the Harper volumes were much less attractive than Bentley's
three-deckers, it is possible that Melville preferred them, for
he believed that "books should be appropriatly apparelled" (as
he said in his review of Cooper's The Red Rover), and at
least the reviewer of Moby-Dick for the New Bedford Daily
Mercury thought that the Harper volumes were "in some respects
'very like a whale' even in outward appearance." Some first impression
sheets were later (about mid-1852) cased in cloth that was blind-stamped
with an arabesque pattern on the front and back. A second printing
(250 copies) appeared in 1855, a third (253 copies) in 1863, and
a fourth (277 copies) in 1871, each with a dated title page.
All
told Tanselle lists 115 editions of Moby-Dick.
American
Whaling Literature
Before the publication of Moby-Dick,
the subject of whaling had a limited but significant representation
in American literature. The most famous early American accounts
had more to do with sensations in the whale fishery such as Owen
Chase Narrative of the most extraordinary and distressing shipwreck
of the whale-ship Essex of Nantucket; which was attacked
and finally destroyed by a large spermaceti-whale, in the Pacific
Ocean... (New York 1821) and William Comstock The
life of Samuel Comstock, the bloody mutineer (Boston, 1845)
outlining the infamous mutiny on the ship Globe of Nantucket
in 1824. Other such titles include William Lay and Cyrus Hussey’s
account of the Globe mutiny, A Narrative of the mutiny
on board the ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean,
Jan. 1824 (New London, 1828) and Horace Holden, Narrative
of the shipwreck, captivity, and sufferings of Horace Holden and
Benj. H. Nute; who were cast away in the American ship Mentor,
on the Pelew Islands, in the year 1832 (Boston, 1836). Previous
to Moby-Dick there were three major American non-fiction
works relating to the whale fishery. They were Francis Allyn Olmsted
Incidents of a whaling voyage... (New York, 1841); J. Ross
Browne Etchings of a whaling cruise...(New York, 1846)
and the Reverend Henry Cheever, The whale and his captors...
(New York, 1849). Additionally there were Herman Melville's two
other whaling related works of fiction, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian
Life... (New York, 1846) and Omoo: A Narrative of Adventure
in the South Seas... (New York, 1847). Although additional
minor titles, such as Reuben Delano, Wanderings and Adventures
of Reuben Delano, being a narrative of twelve years’ life
in a whale ship (New York, Boston and Worcester, 1846) were
published the above list represents the bulk of popular American
writing on the subject before 1851. After 1851 a wide variety
of works of fiction and non-fiction including dime novels, temperance
pamphlets, reminiscences and additional primary accounts came
increasingly into the public sphere.
Mocha
Dick
Melville was also influenced by stories whalemen told about
a ferocious white whale. Twelve years before Moby-Dick,
a U.S. naval officer wrote an article, "Mocha Dick: The White
Whale of the Pacific," in which he described a great whale
that was "white as wool." When the Mocha Dick of this tale was
captured, the crew found twenty harpoons in his body from previous
attempts to kill him.
Captain Ahab and the Pequod
All these influences eventually inspired Melville's tale of
a mad captain and his doomed ship and crew, which was published
in 1851. As the novel begins, Ishmael joins the crew of Captain
Ahab, who is determined to find and kill the white sperm whale
known to whalemen as Moby-Dick. Ahab had lost one of his
legs in an earlier attempt to capture the great beast. In the
final encounter, Captain Ahab, crew, and ship are destroyed. Only
the narrator, Ishmael, survives to tell the story.
The world of the Yankee whaleman
Moby-Dick is a great, sprawling book that moves back
and forth between the main story line and Melville's digressions
on whales, whalecraft, and other subjects. He vividly captures
the environment of the Yankee whaler -- a world of exciting chases
and dangerous, violent work; years of boredom and loneliness;
exotic ports, cannibal crewmen, and strange events; and, always,
"the great shroud of the sea," as Melville described it.
History's Verdict
Although when Moby-Dick was first published the critics
gave it mixed, sometimes scathing reviews, it is today considered
one of the greatest of all American novels.
Moby-Dick:
The Marathon.
On January 3 - 4, the New Bedford Whaling Museum sponsors
a non-stop reading of Moby-Dick to mark the anniversary
of Herman Melville's departure on the Acushnet. Scores of people
converge on the Museum and take turns reading, completing the
470-page novel in 25 hours. Contact the Museum at (508) 997-0046
ext. 140.
Look out for Moby-Dick: When you visit the Museum, pick
up a guide that links 38 artifacts on exhibit with quotes from
Melville's famous novel.
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