Moby-Dick; or, the Whale by Melville, Herman - 1851

New York: Harper and Bros, 1851. First edition. xiii, [i], 634, [2] pp., + 6 pp. of publisher's advertisements at end. 8vo. Publisher's blue cloth, stamped in blind and title in gilt on the spine, marbled endpapers. Some fraying to cloth at spine ends, discoloration and staining to covers, foxing to text as usual. In a custom cloth clamshell box. First edition. xiii, [i], 634, [2] pp., + 6 pp. of publisher's advertisements at end. 8vo. A.E. Newton Copy with Bibliographic Note by C.B. Tinker. The A. Edward Newton copy of the first American edition. Moby-Dick is "a book that has no equal in American literature for variety and splendor of style and for depth of feeling" (DAB). The American edition followed the English by a month and contains some thirty-five passages and an epilogue which were excluded in the English edition. A. Edward Newton, a prolific collector and author, helped popularize Melville's work in the 20th century in his 1928 work The Book-Collecting Game, and he included the novel in his list of "One Hundred Good Novels," calling it "one of the finest pieces of literature in the English language." Along with the rare first English edition (The Whale), Newton's 1941 Parke-Bernet sale featured two copies of Moby-Dick: one in red cloth, and the present copy in blue cloth with the rare grey and yellow marbled endpapers. With a manuscript note in pencil on the verso of the front free endpaper by the Yale Sterling Professor of Literature and noted bibliophile Chauncey Brewster Tinker, "These endpapers are similar to those in my copy and I believe them correct. C.B. Tinker." BAL 13664; Grolier American 60; Johnson High Spots 57. Provenance: Goodwin Colier (signature on flyleaf) - Alfred Edward Newton (1864-1940, American author and book collector; bookplate, his sale, Parke-Bernet, May 1941, lot 731)