Now universally acclaimed, at the time the novel was a “complete practical failure, misunderstood by the critics and ignored by the public; and in 1853 the Harpers’ fire destroyed the plates of all his books and most of the copies remaining in stock” ( DAB , vol. 12, p. 523). This copy is in the first binding, BAL’s “A” state in black, with orange endpapers and the publisher’s device stamped centrally on the sides. Copies in first issue bindings appear in purple, black, blue, grey, green, red, and slate coloured cloth, without any priority. As Sadleir notes, it was the custom of American publishers in the 1850s and 1860s to bind an edition in cloths of various colours for the purpose of window display. Moby-Dick was originally issued in London earlier the same year, set from the New York sheets but with omissions and titled The Whale . Octavo. Original black cloth, rebacked with original spine laid down, spine lettered in gilt with decorative band in gilt at head and foot, covers blocked in blind with central publisher’s life-buoy device, orange endpapers. Housed in a custom black quarter morocco and grey cloth solander box. Magazine clipping with photo of the author taped to front pastedown. Tips and board edges consolidated, old stains to front cover, crease to rear cover, front free endpaper and first blank stuck together, bump to fore edge, a few spots of dampstaining to first few leaves, contents somewhat foxed as usual. A good, sound copy in the uncommon original cloth. ¶ BAL 13664; Grolier American 60; Sadleir, Excursions in Victorian Bibliography , pp. 221, 229. £32,500 [153476] 129 MILN, Robert. A Course of Physico- Theological Lectures upon the State of the World, from the Creation to the Deluge. Carlisle: printed by J. Milliken, and sold by R. Faulder, London, 1786 A FRESH COPY IN ORIGINAL BOARDS Uncommon first edition, defending the Biblical interpretation of creation and of geological time, and seeking to reconcile the increasing geological evidence as outlined by Whitehurst and others with the traditional Christian belief of creation as a single process. The work was published eight years before William Paley’s View of the Evidences of Christianity , and Paley’s name is on the subscribers’ list here, joining other notable subscribers including Joseph Priestley, William Cullen, Richard Price, and Richard Neave, governor of the Bank of England.
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128 MELVILLE, Herman. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851 RARE IN THE ORIGINAL CLOTH
First US edition of Melville’s greatest work, in the first issue binding (BAL’s “A” state, with publisher’s device to covers). The US edition was the first to appear under the familiar title, and contains 35 passages and the epilogue omitted from the English edition which slightly preceded it.
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