Omoo in the Albany Evening Atlas

Here is a favorable review of Herman Melville's second book Omoo from the Albany Evening Atlas of May 4, 1847. The Atlas was then edited by Henry H. Van Dyck and William Cassidy. Like the notice of Moby-Dick in Cassidy's Albany Atlas, this one has not been transcribed or logged in previous Melville scholarship. Gary Scharnhorst discovered the two reviews of Mardi in the Albany Atlas that are reprinted in Herman Melville: The Contemporary Reviews, edited by Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker (Cambridge University Press, 1995) at pages 211 and 227-8. Both Albany Atlas reviews of Mardi are quoted in the first part of Scharnhorst,'s two-part article, "Melville Bibliography 1846-1897: A Sheaf of Uncollected Excerpts, Notices and Reviews," Melville Society Extracts 74 (September 1988) pages 8-12 at page 10.

Found on Fultonhistory.com:

Albany Evening Atlas - May 4, 1847
via FultonHistory

New Publications. 

OMOO, A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas; by HEMAN MELVILLE, author of "Typee." Complete in two parts. 

Another delightful work by the author of Typee, which was one of the most delightful books ever written by an American author. The title of the present work, "Omoo," is borrowed, the author tells us, "from the dialect of the Marquesan Islands, where, among other uses, the word signifies a rover, or rather a person wandering from one island to another." Very appropriate is the title and charming is the thread of narrative and adventure, drawn by our writer amidst the lovely islands of the illimitable Pacific. He takes up his story from the time of his escape from the Typee valley, named in the concluding pages of his former work. His escape being effected by means of an English vessel which had touched at the island to recruit her men. He spent about three months, wandering in various parts of the islands of Tahiti and Imeeo, and the points of his observation and researches are given in the volumes before us, and much have we been entertained and instructed by their perusal. They are written in the same graphic and transparent style that distinguished Typee, and in the same picturesque spirit. It would be easy to select page after page of great beauty, full of the finest sketchings both of scenery and character, whilst the wild and romantic adventure prevalent thro'-out, leads on the attention unflagging, from the commencement to the close. 

We add a short extract from the conclusion of the work, descriptive of his departure from the Island of Imeeo. 

"An hour or two after midnight, every thing was noiseless; but when the first streak of the dawn showed itself over the mountains, a sharp voice hailed the forecastle, and ordered the ship unmoored. The anchors came up cheerily; the sails were soon set; and with the early breath of the tropical morning, fresh and fragrant from the hill sides, we slowly glided down the bay, and were swept through the opening in the reef. Presently we 'hove to,' and the canoes came along side to take off the islanders who had accompanied us thus far. As he stepped on the side, I shook the doctor long and heartily by the hand. I have never seen or heard of him since. 

"Crowding all sail, we braced the yards square, and, the breeze freshening, bowled straight away from the land. Once more the sailor's cradle rocked under me, and I found myself rolling in my gait. 

"By noon the island had gone down in the horizon and all before was the wide Pacific." 

Issued by those eminent publishers the Messrs. HARPER, the work, as a matter of course, possesses all the requisites of clear type, fine white paper and neat exterior.

It is for sale at the Literary Rooms of W. C. LITTLE & Co.  

Related post:

• Moby-Dick in Cassidy's Albany Atlas
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