The Zodiac digitized

Published monthly in Albany, New York from July 1835 to January 1837, The Zodiac is loaded with fine and fascinating writing (much of it locally produced) on a variety of literary, cultural, and scientific subjects. Of particular interest to Melville fans is the publication in 1835-6 of lectures on American literature by Simeon DeWitt Bloodgood. Prior to their appearance in The Zodiac these lectures had been delivered before the Albany Young Men's Association--which Herman Melville joined in January 1835. Hershel Parker takes on The Zodiac and Bloodgood's "pioneering" lecture series in Melville: The Making of the Poet (also the basis of Parker's Historical Note in the Northwestern-Newberry Edition of Melville's Published Poems).

The HathiTrust Digital Library makes available volumes of the Albany Zodiac from libraries at Cornell, Princeton, and the University of Minnesota. Here is the Cornell volume, which happens to be the 1980 facsimile helpfully introduced by historian Don Ritter:


Below, more links to digitized volumes of The Zodiac at Google Books:

• Albany Zodiac volume 1 (Princeton University copy)

• Albany Zodiac volumes 1-2 (U of Chicago)

• Albany Zodiac vol 1&2 (U of Minnesota)