2 volumes, 8vo (184 x 102 mm). Half-titles; 8pp. of sheet music in text of first volume. (Spotting throughout). 20th-century green quarter calf gilt. Provenance: Armorial bookplate.

FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST NOVEL ON WHALING THAT WENT ON TO INSPIRE MELVILLE'S MOBY-DICK. Miriam Coffin was the first book ever published about whaling on Nantucket, with its aim being to encourage congressional support for the island's dying whaling industry. Based on the life of Revolutionary War privateer Kezia Coffin, Hart's novel is considered to have been the greatest fictional influence on Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick, along with Melville's own experiences as a whaler and the true story of the 1820 sinking of the whaleship Essex; tragically Owen Coffin, a member of Nantucket's prominent Coffin family and a presumed relative of Kezia, was among those who perished during the four months the Essex survivors spent drifting through the Pacific Ocean awaiting rescue following the loss of their ship.