Table Of ContentThe Editor
Hershel Parker, H. Fletcher Brown Professor Emeritus, Uni-
versity of Delaware, is author of the two- volume Herman Melville:
A Biography and Melville Biography: An Inside Narrative. He was
one of the original editors of The Norton Anthology of American
Lit er a ture and is coeditor of the Norton Critical Edition of Her-
man Melville’s The Confidence-M an.
NORTON CRITICAL EDITIONS
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MELVILLE, Moby- Dick
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A NORTON CRITICAL EDITION
Herman Melville
MOBY-DICK
AN AUTHORITATIVE TEXT
CONTEXTS
CRITICISM
THIRD EDITION
Edited by
HERSHEL PARKER
UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE, EMERITUS
n
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Copyright © 2018, 2002, 1967 by W. W. Norton & Com pany, Inc.
The essay “Moby- Dick” by Jonathan Lethem copyright © 2017 by
W. W. Norton & Com pany, Inc.
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Melville, Herman, 1819–1891, author. | Parker, Hershel, editor.
Title: Moby- Dick : an authoritative text, contexts, criticism / Herman
Melville ; edited by Hershel Parker.
Description: Third edition. | New York : W. W. Norton & Com pany, [2018] |
Series: A Norton critical edition | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017028806 | ISBN 9780393285000 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Melville, Herman, 1819–1891. Moby Dick. | Ahab,
Captain (Fictitious character)— Fiction. | Whaling ships— Fiction. |
Mentally ill— Fiction. | Whaling— Fiction. | Whales— Fiction. |
Psychological fiction. | Adventure stories. | Sea stories.
Classification: LCC PS2384 .M6 2018 | DDC 813/.3— dc23
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2017028806
W. W. Norton & Com pany, Inc., 500 Fifth Ave nue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www. w wnorton. c om
W. W. Norton & Com pany Ltd., 15 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BS
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Acknowl edgments xvii
Map: Principal Ports of Southeastern New England (Mid-1800s) xviii
Map: Melville’s Voyages and the Route of the Pequod, 1841–44 xix
The Text of Moby- Dick; or, The Whale 1
Contents of moby- dick 3
Etymology 6
Extracts 7
moby- dick 16
Emendations 411
Contexts 419
Hershel Parker • Glimpses of Melville as Performer 421
Whaling and Whalecraft 429
Glossary of Nautical Terms 429
John B. Putnam • Whaling and Whalecraft:
A Pictorial Account 438
Con temporary Engravings 446
Before moby- dick: International Controversy over Melville 455
Gansevoort Melville • [A Compliment to Tennesseans—
and a Tribute to Andrew Jackson] 460
Anonymous • [An American Sailor on the Missionaries] 461
Anonymous • [A Bewitching Work] 462
Captain E. Knight • [Gansevoort Melville on the Strategic
Importance of Oregon] 464
[Nathaniel Hawthorne] • [Melville’s “Freedom of View”
(Not “Laxity of Princi ple”)] 464
Anonymous • [A Unique Eyewitness] 465
Margaret Fuller • [A Challenge to the Sewing Societ ies] 466
Anonymous • [Happy Dog: Herman in the Typee Valley] 467
Henry T. Cheever • [A Prurient Book, That Preys on
the Imagination] 468
Anonymous • [Melville’s Moral Obtuseness] 469
William O. Bourne • Typee: The Traducer of Missions 470
Anonymous • [Melville and Missionary Fund- Raising—
A Review of Omoo] 474
[Thurlow Weed?] • Who Reads an American Book? 475
Anonymous • [Melville’s Spite against Religion and
Its Missionaries] 475
v
vi Contents
“B.” • [Polynesian Cannibalism vs. American Slavery] 476
Horace Greeley • Up the Lakes, 8 June 1847
[The Tone Is Bad] 477
[George Washington Peck] • [Melville as Sexual Braggart] 479
William O. Bourne • [Traducer of Loftier and Better Men] 482
William O. Bourne • [Melville’s Encouraging of “Rum
and Romanism”] 483
Anonymous • [The Total Failure of Protestant Missionaries] 483
E. B. H[all] • Catholic and Protestant Missions 488
[William Gilmore Simms?] • [Review of Mardi] 490
Anonymous • [Civilized Bodies, Barbarous Souls] 491
Anonymous • [The Improving Condition of “Live Cargo”] 491
Anonymous • [A Magisterial Caution from “Maga”] 491
Anonymous • [The “ Middle Passage” for the Irish] 494
Anonymous • [Melville: Prejudiced, Incompetent,
and Truthless] 495
Anonymous • [Unfortunate Mr. Melville] 497
[Evert A. Duyckinck] • [A Defense against the
“Anti- Popery Mania”] 498
[Evert A. Duyckinck] • [White- Jacket and a Warning
to Melville] 499
Anonymous • [A Jibe at “The Essential Dignity of Man”] 499
Sources of and Influences on moby- dick 501
Hershel Parker • Melville’s Reading and Moby- Dick:
An Overview and a Bibliography 501
J. N. Reynolds • Mocha Dick: Or the White Whale of
the Pacific 510
Herman Melville • [The Captain and Crew of the Acushnet
on Melville’s Voyage] 526
Owen Chase • [The Essex Wrecked by a Whale] 527
Herman Melville • [Manuscript Notes on Owen Chase] 532
Herman Melville • [Review of J. Ross Browne and
Captain Ringbolt] 536
The Original of Queequeg: Tupai Cupa’s Self- Portrait 542
Hershel Parker • Moby- Dick and Melville’s Notes
in His Shakespeare 543
Herman Melville • Hawthorne and His Mosses 544
Melville’s Letters at the Time of moby- dick 559
To Richard H. Dana Jr., May 1, 1850 560
To Richard Bentley, June 27, 1850 561
To Evert A. Duyckinck, December 13, 1850 562
To Evert A. Duyckinck, February 12, 1851 562
To Nathaniel Hawthorne, [April 16?], 1851 564
To Nathaniel Hawthorne, Early May 1851 566
To Nathaniel Hawthorne, June 29, 1851 569
To Richard Bentley, July 20, 1851 570
To Nathaniel Hawthorne, July 22, 1851 571
To Sarah Huyler Morewood, September 12 [or 19?], 1851 572
To Evert A. Duyckinck, November 7, 1851 572
To Nathaniel Hawthorne, November 17, 1851 573
To Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, January 8, 1852 575
Contents vii
Criticism 577
Reviews of The Whale and Moby- Dick 579
Anonymous • [The Whole Powers of the Man] 579
Anonymous • [A Credit to His Country] 580
Anonymous • [An Ill- Compounded Mixture] 581
Anonymous • [A Singular Medley] 583
Anonymous • [ People Who Delight in Mulligatawny] 585
Anonymous • [A Most Extraordinary Work] 585
Anonymous • [Fascination No Criticism Will Thwart] 587
Anonymous • [No Fayaway in It. Alas!] 588
Anonymous • [Not Worth the Money Asked for It] 588
“H.” • [A Primitive Formation of Profanity and Indecency] 589
Anonymous • [Not Lacking Much of Being a Great Work] 590
[Horace Greeley?] • [Melville’s Whaliad, the Epic of
Whaling] 593
[Evert A. Duyckinck] • [A Friend Does His Christian Duty] 594
Anonymous • [Too Much for Our Money] 597
Anonymous • [Information: The Only Redeeming Point] 597
A. Oakey Hall • [A Book Which Enhances Melville’s Fame] 598
[George Ripley?] • [A Pregnant Allegory . . . Illustrating the
Mystery of Human Life] 599
[Augustus K. Gardner?] • [Fresh and Buoyant as Ever] 600
Anonymous • [A “Many- Sided” Book] 601
Edward Forbes • [Purposeless and Unequal D oings] 603
Anonymous • [Talent Perverted] 605
Anonymous • [A Strange, Wild Book] 605
[William A. Butler] • [A Prose Epic on Whaling] 606
Anonymous • [Pristine Powers and Old Extravagance] 608
Anonymous • [A Most Agreeable and Exciting Work] 612
Anonymous • [Mr. Melville Has Survived His Reputation] 612
[William Gilmore Simms?] • [Grounds for a Writ de
Lunatico against Melville] 613
Francis Jacox • [A Strange, Wild, Furibund Thing] 614
Aftermath of moby- dick 617
Hershel Parker • Damned by Dollars: Moby- Dick and the
Price of Genius 617
Belated Praise and the Melville Revival: 1879–1927 633
Gath [George Alfred Townsend] • [A F uture President
Explicates Moby- Dick] 633
Anonymous • [A Marvellous Odyssey] 634
Archibald MacMechan • The Best Sea Story Ever Written 635
William Livingston Alden • [Let Us Have a Melville Society] 642
Louis Becke • [The Strangest, Wildest, and Saddest Story] 643
“A Wayfarer” • [A Deposition from a New Reader] 643
Christopher Morley and H. M. Tomlinson • [Moby- Dick:
“The Im mense Book of the Sea”] 644
Hershel Parker • Melville’s British Admirers: “Passing on
the Torch” 646
viii Contents
Literary Criticism 663
Walter E. Bezanson • [The Dynamic in Moby- Dick:
Ishmael’s Voices] 663
Harrison Hayford • “Loomings”: Yarns and Figures in
the Fabric 667
moby- dick in the Twenty- First C entury 679
Greil Marcus • [A Single Phrase Can Bring a Hundred
Pages Back] 679
Timothy Marr • Kraken: Moby- Dick in Popu lar Culture 681
Mary K. Bercaw Edwards and Wyn Kelley • Melville and
the Spoken Word 686
Robert K. Wallace • Moby- Dick and the Arts in the
Early Twenty- First Century 692
Jonathan Lethem • Moby- Dick 701
Roger Payne • Melville’s Disentangling of Whales 702
Selected Bibliography 705
Illustrations
Map: Princi ple Ports of Southeastern New England (Mid-1800s) xviii
Map: Melville’s Voyages and the Route of the Pequod, 1841–1844 xix
Dedication to Nathaniel Hawthorne 2
Elevation and Plan View of a Typical Whaleship 438
Whaling Bark u nder Sail 439
Whaleboat Slung from Davits 440
Details of Rigging 440
Lapstrake (Clinkerbuilt) Construction 441
Plan View of a Typical Whaleboat 442
Elevation of a Typical Whaleboat 442
Whaleboat u nder Sail 443
Irons and Lances 443
Men on Boat Stripping Whale Carcass 444
Tools of the Trade 445
“ There She Blows!” 446
Struck on a Breach 447
Lancing 448
Boat Destroyed by a Whale 449
In the Whale’s Jaw 450
Bailing the “Case” 451
“Cutting In” 452
Trying Out 453
The Original of Queequeg: Tupai Cupa’s Self- Portrait 542
Qiao Xiaoguang, The Story of Moby- Dick 694
Aileen Callahan, Breaching Coil 696
Matt Kish, Extract 14 700
ix
