Project MUSE - A Third Update on Books Owned, Borrowed, and Consulted by Herman Melville

Link below to a gem in the latest Leviathan with exciting news of recovered markings and marginalia in Melville's set of Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson. By Christopher Ohge and Brandon Hurst who are also taking the editorial reins at Melville's Marginalia Online.

Project MUSE - A Third Update on Books Owned, Borrowed, and Consulted by Herman Melville

🙏🙏Thanks to Founding Editors Steven Olsen-Smith and Peter Norberg and every contributor to https://melvillesmarginalia.org/ for a monumental job well done! 👍👍

Kant's head on the larboard

Why Kant? I mean the right whale's head in Moby-Dick chapter 73, suspended on one side of the Pequod, counter-balanced by the sperm whale's head on the other side. Why make the right whale Kant and the sperm whale Locke? Much can and has been made of the dueling philosophies (say… pic.twitter.com/3UL3WLqbcF

— Scott Norsworthy 🇺🇸 (@Melvilliana) March 23, 2026

 

Capturing a sperm whale

Capturing a sperm whale by Scott Norsworthy

Re-presenting the animated 1823 description by Henry J. Pickering aka "Thomas H. Bennett"

Read on Substack

 

Grassy glades, oh!

Grassy glades, oh! by Scott Norsworthy

a shared trigram in MOBY-DICK and "Scenes Beyond the Western Border"

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After-supper dialogue with "I. F." = IMAGINARY FRIEND

After supper by Scott Norsworthy

DRAGOONED: Writing, talking, and rewriting like Herman Melville in "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" (1851-1853). Number 7.

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The Meters - Mardi Gras Mambo

 

Falling harpooners per Scoresby and Melville

Accidents at Sea, North (falling into Right Whale's mouth) and South (Sperm Whale's head) #MelvilleMonday

"The harpooners not unfrequently fall into the fish's mouth, when it is exposed by the removal of a surface of blubber; where they might easily be drowned, but for the… pic.twitter.com/DAIvdfR0Ou

— Scott Norsworthy 🇺🇸 (@Melvilliana) February 16, 2026