Bibliographic Essay: Melville´s Moby Dick

Title: Moby Dick; or The Whale

Author: Herman Melville

Illustrator: Rockwell Kent

Publisher (and location): Random House (New York)

Date of publication: 1930

Physical Description:

The binding is half green morocco with marbled paper boards. Raised bands on spine with gilt lettering and gilt font cover decoration. Marbled end papers. Top edge gilt.

The cover has, on the lower left corner, a guilt image of a ship. On the spine, in between the raised sections, are guilt images of stars, anchors, and ships.

Three blank pages at the beginning, followed by the title page, printer information on its verso, and the dedication, which reads “in token of my admiration for his genius this book is inscribed to Nathaniel Hawthorne”.

Pages:

vii-xii: Table of contents

xiii-xiv: Etymology, on the origins and roots of “whale”.

xv-xxxi:  Extracts, quotations from an array of texts that mention whales, beasts, ships, and the ocean (including the Bible).

The first letter of every chapter is a bold illustrated letter. The chapter name and number are in bold capital letters. Each chapter has an illustration on the top third of the page (in black and white). Page numbers in the bottom center of the page, arrows pointing outwards from the number. The page on the left of each chapter contains an illustration. Many more are scattered in the chapters, and often at the end of chapters as well.

The book has 822 pages, and is set in Monotype Fournier.

Author—Herman Melville (1819-1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet. Born in New York City, he started his experience at sea in 1839, which inspired him to write, and in 1850 he moved to Massachusetts, where he became good friends with Nathaniel Hawthorne. Moby Dick was published in 1851, without much commercial success.  Other works include Pierre; or the Ambiguities and The Confidence Man, which like Moby Dick, were dismissed by Melville´s contemporaries and had poor success. In 1891, Melville died of heart failure and it wasn´t until the 1920´s that his work became of interest, granting him a pass into the club of “America´s greatest writers”.

According to The Heath Anthology of American Fiction, “Moby-Dick’s matchless achievement was to transform the implements, raw materials, and processes of a lucrative, gory industry, which subsisted on the plunder of nature, into rich symbols of the struggle to fulfill humanity’s potential under conditions threatening apocalyptic destruction”.

Illustrator— Rockwell Kent (1882-1971) was an American writer, painter, illustrator, and printmaker. He was born in Tarrytown, New York and studied at the New York School of Art. He was influenced by the work of Thoreau and Emerson, and traveled and lived in far-flung regions, such as Minnesota, Newfoundland, Alaska, Vermont, Greenland, and Tierra del Fuego. He produced numerous autobiographies and adventure memoirs from his journeys.

How it all came to be—

The first British edition (entitled The Whale) was published in three volumes on October 18, 1851 by Richard Bentley, London. The first American edition was published November 14, 1851 by Harper & Brothers, New York.

Perhaps the most significant event in Melville´s life that led to Moby Dick was his time on the whaler Acushnet (1841), as well as other past events involving whales.  In 1821, a sperm whale attacked the Nantucket whaler Essex, sinking the ship, accounts of which inspired Melville to write his novel.  In letters to his publisher, Melville described the book as “a romance of adventure, founded upon certain wild legends of the Southern Sperm Whale Fisheries”.

The Epilogue that explains how Ishmael survived the destruction of the Pequod, was omitted from the first edition, which led some critics to condemn Melville for “leaving no one alive to tell the first-person narrative”. It´s interesting that today Melville´s work is considered canonical, but at the time Moby-Dick was not well received and had little success. Martin claims that “Rockwell Kent brought [Herman Melville] back to life” (105).

It was the director of the New York School of Art, Robert Henri, who first encouraged Kent to visit a summer art colony in Monhegan Island, Maine, where Kent was captivated by the wilderness and fishing community. He stayed for the winter, learned the trade, and enjoyed the life by the sea. That would be the start of his many journeys.

In 1926, Kent was approached by R. R. Donnelley and Sons from Lakeside Press to do illustrations for Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr. Kent declined, but chose to do Moby Dick instead.

In 1929, after having completed more than half of the drawings—perhaps in another “self-discovery” endeavor— Kent joined a sailboat to Greenland, which ended up in a shipwreck, where Kent saved the crew by trekking for three days and getting rescued by a kayaker.  One thousand copies of the Deluxe Edition were published in 1930, a three volume set in a metal slipcase. The Random House edition was published and sold for $ 3.50, which contained 270 of the 280 original illustrations (black ink, lots of shadows and sharp lines).

It is interesting to consider that Rockwell Kent´s illustrations also reflect his personal interest and knowledge of the wilderness, the natural world, and exploration— not only was he asked to illustrate a tale of the sea, but he had significant experience from his travels and readings, which give an additional perspective to his artistic work. His life provided inspiration and material for his art, and vice versa.

The rights to Kent’s artwork and writings were gifted to the Plattsburgh College Foundation to support the Plattsburgh State Art Museum’s Rockwell Kent Gallery and Collection, after the death of Sally Kent Gordon in 2000.

Works Cited and Consulted

“Herman Melville.” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets. Web. 10 Feb. 2016.

Martin, Constance. “Rockwell Kent’s Distant Shores: The Story of an Exhibition”. Arctic 55.1 (2002): 101–106. Web.

Plattsburg State University of New York Art Museum, Rockwell Kent Gallery. “The Illustrations.” 75th Anniversary – Lakeside Press Edition of Moby Dick or The Whale By Herman Melville Illustrated by Rockwell Kent. Web. 09 Feb. 2016.