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Lot 168
Sale 759 - Selections from the Library of Gerald and Barbara Weiner
Oct 8, 2020
10:00AM CT
Live / Chicago
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Estimate
$8,000 -
12,000
Price Realized
$8,750
Sold prices are inclusive of Buyer’s Premium
Lot Description
MELVILLE, Herman (1819-1891). Autograph letter signed ("H. Melville”), to his publisher George P. Putnam. Pittsfield [MA], 25 November 1854. One page, 8vo (171 x 121 mm). (Tiny chip at upper left corner repaired, otherwise fine.)
DRAWING ON FUNDS FROM SERIALIZATION OF ‘ISRAEL POTTER’.
In full: “Gentlemen: — I have taken the liberty to draw on you today at three days’ sight for Sixty Dollars ($60); about which sum will probably be due on Dec: No: of ‘Israel Potter’.”
Melville’s only historical novel, Israel Potter was serialized in Putnam's from July 1854 to March 1855 and was published in book form by the firm later the same year. Not in Letters, ed. M. R. Davis and W. H. Gilman, and APPARENTLY UNPUBLISHED. See Letters, no. 112, for a letter to Putnam dated "7 June? 1854" also regarding terms for Israel Potter. Another unpublished letter from Melville to Putnam, 12 June 1854, agreeing to the terms for Israel Potter sold at Christie’s 8 Oct 1991, lot 174.