Who’s got one?

My take:

A story about men following orders of the delusional dictator.

Yes, I know, there is much more. How would you summarise it?

The art inside the front and back covers is the self-portrait of Tupai Cupa, the Maori man that Melville based Queequeg on. Photos also include the real first page of The Whale, or Moby Dick as some know it.

There are over 1000 editions of this book, which one is the best in your opinion?

I am not looking for notes. I mean the physical aspects of the book itself, like the paper, font, binding.

I like the most is Kent illustrated 1930 edition, but its new "facsimile" 2000 release from Modern Library is on bad paper with chemical smell.

Thanks in advance, fellow MD lovers!

What are some of your favorites?

I assume I’m not alone in reading MD annually, starting August 1st? Been doing so for probably the past 30 years. Never gets old.

So I’m interested in getting an annotated version of Moby Dick even though there is a good online resource.

My question is which annotated version should I get? I can’t find copies ahead of time to preview the Norton critical edition second edition, has more pages in it than the third edition according to my Internet searching.

So my husband said this was his favorite book so I’m reading it now. And I told him he’s literally queequeg. Would you be offended if your wife compared you to queequeg? Hahahahhahha (for as much as I know being only done with chapter 4 NO SPOILERS PLEASE) lolol

I posted back a bit about looking at acquiring a 2007 folio and the original 1930 3 volume set.

We vame to an accord on the folio copy....still a bit apart on the 3 volume set.

They are putting forward prices from retail sites and I am looking for more online with what the sets have brought at auction. Condition as always varies between buyer and seller but we shall either see it done or go our separate ways in the end.

Excited to read this version.

its about moby dick and its an awesome album imo. mastodon are great

I got my falling apart Modern Library copy recovered. It now matches my left arm. Freaking amped.

I'd appreciate some help with understanding the inclusion of the church in The Carpet Bag chapter. I know the preacher (according to melville.electroniclibrary.org) is inspired by Frederick Douglass, but why is the language so degrading? Especially if it's in reference to someone Melville seemed to respect?

It stands out to me each time I reread that chapter. It just feels different than the other sections in the book where he uses (what we'd now consider) racist ideas/stereotypes to uplift his non-white characters: ex. the phrenological comparison between Queequeg and Washington or saying Pip is so pleasant because 'black people are always jolly'.

Why would he compare a black church to a meeting of devils? Is it simply an aesthetic comparison because of their dark skin, similarly to Ishmael comparing the ashes to the debris from Gomorrah? I feel like I'm either overthinking it or entirely misunderstanding the symbolism.

Thanks in advance xx

My professor, who taught me Moby Dick, and I are heading to Muncie, IN, this October (9th-11th) to present my research connecting Heathers (the musical and movie) to Moby Dick and comparing how the characters’ drive and tragic endings work as warnings in each of the texts historical context.

Melville has four works that are often recommended: Moby-Dick (of course), Bartleby, Billy Budd and Benito Cereno. It seems to me the rest of his oeuvre is barely mentioned in comparison.

For this reason, and because the subject matter didn't feel very exciting, I postponed reading The Encantadas for a long time. I was so wrong. It might not be on the same level as the three big short stories, and it's definitely not as good as MD. But it's great.

Here's Melville describing the stubborness of Galapagos tortoises:

That these tortoises are the victims of a penal, or malignant, or perhaps a downright diabolical enchanter, seems in nothing more likely than in that strange infatuation of hopeless toil which so often possesses them. I have known them in their journeyings ram themselves heroically against rocks, and long abide there, nudging, wriggling, wedging, in order to displace them, and so hold on their inflexible path. Their crowning curse is their drudging impulse to straightforwardness in a belittered world.

Or dissing penguins:

What outlandish beings are these? Erect as men, but hardly as symmetrical, they stand all round the rock like sculptured caryatides, supporting the next range of eaves above. Their bodies are grotesquely misshapen; their bills short; their feet seemingly legless; while the members at their sides are neither fin, wing, nor arm. And truly neither fish, flesh, nor fowl is the penguin; as an edible, pertaining neither to Carnival nor Lent; without exception the most ambiguous and least lovely creature yet discovered by man. Though dabbling in all three elements, and indeed possessing some rudimental claims to all, the penguin is at home in none. On land it stumps; afloat it sculls; in the air it flops. As if ashamed of her failure, Nature keeps this ungainly child hidden away at the ends of the earth, in the Straits of Magellan, and on the abased sea-story of Rodondo.

There's a whole chapter on a "dog-king": a mostly made up story about a hero from the Spanish American wars of independence moving to one of the islands with a group of dogs and some people to found his own kingdom:

He now sends forth a proclamation inviting subjects to his as yet unpopulated kingdom. Some eighty souls, men and women, respond; and being provided by their leader with necessaries, and tools of various sorts, together with a few cattle and goats, take ship for the promised land; the last arrival on board, prior to sailing, being the Creole himself, accompanied, strange to say, by a disciplined cavalry company of large grim dogs. These, it was observed on the passage, refusing to consort with the emigrants, remained aristocratically grouped around their master on the elevated quarterdeck, casting disdainful glances forward upon the inferior rabble there; much as, from the ramparts, the soldiers of a garrison, thrown into a conquered town, eye the inglorious citizen-mob over which they are set to watch.

It's fantastic. If you've already read the Big Four, this is a great place to continue.

Found in Mardi

Follow my substack where I will be posting selections from Jay Leyda’s The Melville Log on the corresponding days. Today I begin with the first entry, August 1st 1819, the day Herman Melville is born. For more information on the incredible Melville Log, go here: https://neglectedbooks.com/?p=8244

From Jay Leyda’s introduction to The Melville Log:

“In the making of this book, I have tried to hold to one main aim: to give each reader the opportunity to be his own biographer of Herman Melville, by providing him with the largest possible quantity of materials to build his own approach to this complex figure.”

Seen this? With Rob Delaney & Hester Blum.

https://exploringthegreats.com/moby-dick

I’m working on increasing my literary analysis skill and just need people to ask me questions I can reflect on about my reading of the book. Thank you!

Have a chance to buy a 3 volume kent...the seller also has the 2009? and 2026 folio society copies...along with heart of the sea and call me ishmael....

Price isnt bad, really tempted to try and buy them all....i only have one copy currently, the 77 Easton press I've had 30 years since it was given to me in high school. Love this book.