8vo. 6pp. publisher's ads at end. (Spotting throughout, small marred area on dedication leaf.) Original purple-brown cloth [BAL second binding, unrecorded variant color], blind-stamped with a grolieresque frame to covers, spine lettered in gilt (spine ends restored with some lettering re-gilted, discrete color touch-ups to spine); cloth slipcase and chemise.

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, in the BAL second binding (priority established), following the 3-volume English edition by a month, and contains thirty-five passages not present in that edition. In Grolier's One Hundred Influential American Books, Melville's great novel can best be described as containing "the sounds and scents, the very flavor, of the maritime life of our whaling ancestors," and in Johnson's High Spots, a "masterpiece" after rising from semi-obscurity in the 20th century. BAL 13664; Grolier American 60; Johnson's American First Editions, p.247; Johnson, High Spots of American Literature p.57. A BRIGHT, SQUARE COPY.