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Moby Dick
by Herman Melville
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Used - Good
- Seller
-
Southampton, New York, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Random House, 1930. First Edition. Hardcover. Used - Good. 1930 Random House Edition Illustrated by Rockwell Kent. Published by Random House, 1930. Octavo. Black cloth boards stamped in silver. Signed and inscribed by artist Rockwell Kent on flyleaf, To Anna Rush by Rockwell Kent . Book is in good condition. Has moderate shelf/edge wear. Spotting to flyleafs. Silver whale and text to front boards has been mostly rubbed off. Has contemporary pencil notations on rear second to last page as well as some margin notations throughout. Has wear to board edges. Large rip/tear to front top corner. Some cloth fraying at edges/hinges. Lacking original dust jacket. Has a facsimile jacket included. A good copy of this landmark edition of Moby-Dick featuring the classic woodcut illustrations of Rockwell Kent, signed by Kent. 825 pages. 100% positive feedback. 30 day money back guarantee. NEXT DAY SHIPPING! Excellent customer service. Please email with any questions or if you would like a photo. All books packed carefully and ship with free delivery confirmation/tracking. All books come with free bookmarks. Ships from Southampton, New York.
Synopsis
Melville's classic was first published in England as three volumes titled The Whale in October 1851. Slow sales of Melville's previously books convinced Publisher L. Richard Bentley to reduce the printing to only 500 copies, and of that, only 300 sold in the first 4 months. The remaining unbound sheets were bound in a cheaper casing in 1852, and in 1853 there were still enough remaining sheets to again bind into an even cheaper edition. Melville changed the title to Moby Dick a month later, November 1851, when the American Version was published in one volume by Harper & Brothers in NY. Of the 2,951 copies printed, 125 were review copies. About 1,500 sold in 11 days, but then sales slowed to less than 300 the next year. After two years copies of the first edition were still available, and almost 300 were destroyed in the 1853 fire of Harper's warehouse. Most of the first editions have orange end-papers, although there are 2 known volumes with rare white-endpapers. Because of Nineteenth-century printing practices, and the time-lapse between when the first-editions were published and Melville became collectible, oxidized paper, bumped and chipped spines, and brittle wrappers are all common for even the most expensive and collectible of these books, which can sell from $35,000 to $100,000. Also, expect heavy wear and maybe even minor repair. Another collectible edition is the 1930 first edition illustrated by Rockwell Kent, a three-volume set published by the Lakeside Press with acetate dust jackets in an aluminum slipcase. These range in value from $9,000 to $11,000. A total of 3,215 copies of Moby-Dick were sold during Melville's life (he died in 1891). Today, Moby-Dick is considered one of the greatest American novels. -
Read More: Identifying first editions of Moby Dick
Reviews
On Mar 9 2016, a reader said:
Why would this be 600 since the original was in 1851?
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Details
- Bookseller
- Southampton Books
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 92835
- Title
- Moby Dick
- Author
- Herman Melville
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First Edition
- Publisher
- Random House
- Date Published
- 1930
- Keywords
- , , , , , , , ,
Terms of Sale
Southampton Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Southampton Books
Biblio member since 2022
Southampton, New York
About Southampton Books
Southampton Books & Sag Harbor Books - Independent bookstores located in the villages of Southampton & Sag Harbor, New York. Selling new and collectible books in all categories. We Buy Books! Do you have books to sell? Call or email or visit our website. Collections - Libraries - Individual Titles.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
- Octavo
- Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
- Facsimile
- An exact copy of an original work. In books, it refers to a copy or reproduction, as accurate as possible, of an original...
- A.N.
- The book is pristine and free of any defects, in the same condition as ...
- New
- A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...
- Inscribed
- When a book is described as being inscribed, it indicates that a short note written by the author or a previous owner has been...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
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