Missing Table of Contents

"For good reason, then, we regard the Harper edition as the text that Melville wanted published in his lifetime. We have silently corrected obvious printers' errors, but otherwise present the novel as it first appeared in July 1852, which means that there are some inconsistencies.... We have decided not to choose among such variants but to reproduce what the first printing presented." --Robert S. Levine and Cindy Weinstein, A Note on the Text and Annotations in Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (W. W. Norton & Company, 2017), pages xix-xx.

I bought this NCE edition partly because I was curious to learn what if anything the editors made of Melville's reference early in Book I to the "excellent English author of these times." Do they point to Wordsworth in a footnote, I wondered. Yes with two qualifiers, "unclear" and "perhaps." No mention of The Prelude.

On my way to Book I and Wordsworth I noticed (after a side-trip through Melville's illy) the NCE Pierre lacks Melville's original Table of Contents, despite the promise to "present the novel as it first appeared in July 1852." Subsequent page headings in the NCE Pierre do give individual "Book" titles or abbreviated versions, but in the 1852 Harper edition only "PIERRE." appears throughout, at the top of each page after the first page of a new "Book."

Fortunately Harvard University has a first edition of Pierre; or, The Ambiguities, digitized by Google and accessible online in several formats. Students with just the NCE Pierre can get the missing Table of Contents via the Internet Archive.


Alternatively, the same Google-digitzed Harvard volume is also accessible online courtesy of HathiTrust Digital Library.

• 1852 Harper edition page v
  https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044011420494?urlappend=%3Bseq=11

• 1852 Harper edition page vi
  https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044011420494?urlappend=%3Bseq=12

• 1852 Harper edition page vii
  https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044011420494?urlappend=%3Bseq=13

• 1852 Harper edition page viii
  https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044011420494?urlappend=%3Bseq=14  

Print editions that do provide a Table of Contents with Melville's individual Book titles include Pierre, or, The Ambiguities  (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1929); the 1949 Hendricks House edition of Pierre; or, The Ambiguities edited by Henry A. Murray; and the 1992 Northwestern-Newberry Edition of Melville's Pierre, or The Ambiguities edited by Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle.

Transcribed below from the 1852 Harper edition.

[v]

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

BOOK I.
                          Page

PIERRE JUST EMERGING FROM HIS TEENS . . . . . 1

BOOK II.

LOVE, DELIGHT, AND ALARM . . . . . . . . . 26 

BOOK III.

THE PRESENTIMENT AND THE VERIFICATION . . . . 56 

BOOK IV.

RETROSPECTIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 

BOOK V.

MISGIVINGS AND PREPARATIVES . . . . . . . . 116 

BOOK VI.

ISABEL, AND THE FIRST PART OF THE STORY OF ISABEL 147

 vi

CONTENTS.

BOOK VII.
                                  Page

INTERMEDIATE BETWEEN PIERRE'S TWO INTERVIEWS
   WITH ISABEL AT THE FARM-HOUSE . . . . . . 173

BOOK VIII.

THE SECOND INTERVIEW, AND THE SECOND PART OF
   THE STORY OF ISABEL. THEIR IMMEDIATE IMPULSIVE
   EFFECT UPON PIERRE . . . . . . . . . . . 194

BOOK IX.

MORE LIGHT, AND THE GLOOM OF THAT LIGHT. MORE
   GLOOM, AND THE LIGHT OF THAT GLOOM . . . . 224

BOOK X.

THE UNPRECEDENTED FINAL RESOLUTION OF PIERRE . 233

BOOK XI.

HE CROSSES THE RUBICON . . . . . . . . . . 247

BOOK XII.

ISABEL, MRS. GLENDINNING, THE PORTRAIT, AND LUCY 256

BOOK XIII.

THEY DEPART THE MEADOWS . . . . . . . . . 273

 vii

CONTENTS.

BOOK XIV.
                                   Page

THE JOURNEY AND THE PAMPHLET . . . .  277

BOOK XV.

THE COUSINS . . . . . . . . . . . . .  294

BOOK XVI.

FIRST NIGHT OF THEIR ARRIVAL IN THE CITY . . . 312

BOOK XVII.

YOUNG AMERICA IN LITERATURE . . . . . . . . 333

BOOK XVIII.

PIERRE, AS A JUVENILE AUTHOR, RECONSIDERED . . 350

BOOK XIX.

THE CHURCH OF THE APOSTLES . . . . . . . . 360

BOOK XX.

CHARLIE MILLTHORPE . . . . . . . . . . . 374

BOOK XXI.

PIERRE IMMATURELY ATTEMPTS A MATURE BOOK. TID-
   INGS PROM THE MEADOWS. PLINLIMMON  . . . .  384

viii

CONTENTS.

BOOK XXII.
                                 Page

THE FLOWER-CURTAIN LIFTED FROM BEFORE A TROPI-
   CAL AUTHOR ; WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE TRAN-
   SCENDENTAL FLESH-BRUSH PHILOSOPHY . . . . . 402

BOOK XXIII.

A LETTER FOR PIERRE. ISABEL. ARRIVAL OF LUCY'S
   EASEL AND TRUNKS AT THE APOSTLES' . . . . . 418

BOOK XXIV.

LUCY AT THE APOSTLES' . . . . . . . . . . 439

BOOK XXV.

LUCY, ISABEL, AND PIERRE. PIERRE AT HIS BOOK.
   ENCELADUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  450

BOOK XXVI.

A WALK; A FOREIGN PORTRAIT; A SAIL. AND THE
   END . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  475

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• Melville's illy
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• Clams, boats and footnotes in Pierre
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/05/clams-boats-and-footnotes-in-pierre.html

• Sops for hell-hounds in Pierre
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2020/05/sops-for-hell-hounds-in-pierre.html

• Where Pierre shot Glen Stanly
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