One favorable notice of Moby-Dick appeared in the Rochester Daily Democrat on January 21, 1852, as previously reported on Melvilliana:
Visiting Fulton History this morning I ran across an earlier notice of Melville's big sixth book in the Rochester Daily Democrat of November 20, 1851. New Publications.
MOBY DICK, or the WHALE. By Herman Melville, author of "Type[e]," &c. Harper & Bros.The Rochester Daily Democrat was edited by Henry Cook and Samuel P. Allen, according to the Semi-centennial History of the City of Rochester. Henry Cook died on June 26, 1850 ("Fifty Years' Retrospect," Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, September 14, 1884), leaving Samuel P. Allen as sole editor of the Rochester Daily Democrat when it favorably noticed Moby-Dick, twice.
The author of several delightful narratives of experience in out-of-the-way regions, and among strange and unknown people, has given another "yarn" of the sea. In this line he is almost equally happy and successful as in his descriptions of savage life in the islands of the sea. The experiences of the whaler are full of novel and exciting incident, which have become known only in fragmentary publications, giving but a glimpse of the real life of those who pursue leviathan upon the deep. This book of Mr. Melville's gives us a good insight into the habits of the monster himself, as well as of the modes of pursuit and capture. It is given in a style partaking much of that in which romances are presented, perhaps partaking somewhat of the author's imaginative characteristics. As an agreeable fire-side book, which may not be read unprofitably, we commend it. For sale by Messrs. SAGE & BRO. and D. M. DEWEY.
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| Rochester Daily Democrat (Rochester, New York) - November 20, 1851 |
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