3 volumes, 4to. Numerous woodcut illustrations by Rockwell Kent. Original black cloth, titled and decorated in silver, top edges stained black, several leaves unopened (spines slightly sunned, tiny break at foot of spine vol. II, a few tiny stains); aluminum slipcase (a few minor scratches).

 

LIMITED EDITION, one of 1000 copies, one of R. R. Donnelley and Sons’ Lakeside Press “Four American Books” campaign.  Of the four books produced for the series (also including Poe’s Tales, Thoreau’s Walden, and Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast), Moby Dick was the only work to sell out completely.  “The most lasting contribution of the undertaking, though, was Kent’s Moby Dick. Still regarded as the definitive illustrated edition of this American Classic, it positioned Chicago as a major center in the history of American book illustration, design, and production” (Coventry, “Four American Books Campaign,” Chicago by the Book, p.121). The Artist and the Book 130; Caxton Chicago by the Book 53.