The Piazza Tales

London: Constable, 1923. First Edition thus. Decorative Cloth. Fine-. Limited Edition (one of only 750 copies printed) of Melville's massive narrative poem, comprising more than eighteen thousand lines (the length of Paradise Lost) of iambic tetrameter. The poem is divided into four parts: the first volume contains parts I and II (Jerusalem and the Holy Land); the second, part III and IV (Mar Saba and Bethlehem). Tall, thick 8vo: x,332; viii,298pp. Publisher's slate-blue cloth, spine and covers paneled in blind, spine lettered in gilt, top edge gilt, fore- and bottom edges rough-cut, coated maroon end papers, title page in French blue and black. About Fine (neat gift inscription to half title), firmly and squarely bound, pages clean and crisp. BAL 13680. Hill 1143 (first edition). Volume X of the 16-volume Works of Herman Melville, Standard Edition, the publication of which (in an edition of only 750 copies) marked a key event in the Melville revival of the 1920s, which rescued the neglected writer from obscurity and secured him a prominent place in the American literary canon. In 1853, in need of income, Melville turned to short fiction, publishing over the next three years some fifteen stories in Putnam's Magazine and Harper's New Monthly Magazine. Three are especially notable: "Bartleby, the Scrivener," a parable of the human spirit corrupted by Wall Street materialism; "The Encantadas," a refiguring of the Galápagos islands as a Dantean hell, and "Benito Cereno," the dazzling account of a slave insurrection. Melville incorporated these into The Piazza Tales along with three other previously published stories. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable polypropylene sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).