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A NEW ROMANCE BY TYPEE MELVILLE.--According to the masthead the Atlas was then published by Herrick and Ropes, meaning founder Anson Herrick and John F. Ropes. Herrick and Ropes previously had owned the New York Aurora, edited for a month or so in 1842 by Walt Whitman.
The July number of Putnam's Monthly contains the first part of an original American Romance, from the brilliant pen of Melville, called Israel Potter, a Fourth of July story.
As related in Melville's main source, the Life and Remarkable Adventures of Israel R. Potter, the real historical Israel Potter was born in Rhode Island. The first of many changes in Melville's rewrite is to make Berkshire, Massachusetts the birthplace of his revolutionary war hero. Melville himself was already planted there. Or transplanted, having bought an old farm house near Pittsfield and moved there from New York City with his family in late 1850. They called the place Arrowhead.
Digitized versions of the July 1854 volume of Putnam's Monthly Magazine with the first installment of Israel Potter are accessible online courtesy of HathiTrust Digital Library
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/umn.31951002805978f?urlappend=%3Bseq=88and Google Books:
https://books.google.com/books?id=pNk6AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA66&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
Melville's July 4th romance of Israel Potter ran in Putnam's magazine from July 1854 to March 1855, nine installments in all:
Part 1. July 1854 - Putnam's Monthly Magazine 4 (July 1854): 66-75.
Part 2. August 1854 - Putnam's Monthly Magazine 4 (August 1854): 135-146.
Part 3. September 1854 - Putnam's Monthly Magazine 4 (September 1854): 277-290.
Part 4. October 1854 - Putnam's Monthly Magazine 4 (October 1854): 371-378.
Part 5. November 1854 - Putnam's Monthly Magazine 4 (November 1854): 481-491.
Part 6. December 1854 - Putnam's Monthly Magazine 4 (December 1854): 592-601.
Part 7. January 1855 - Putnam's Monthly Magazine 5 (January 1855): 63-71.
Part 8. February 1855 - Putnam's Monthly Magazine 5 (February 1855): 176-182.
Part 9. March 1855 - Putnam's Monthly Magazine 5 (March 1855): 288-294.
The book version Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile was published in 1855 by G. P. Putnam & Co. Digitized versions of the 1855 book are accessible online courtesy of HathiTrust Digital Library
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044009684473
and the Internet Archive.
Related posts:
- Daniel Webster on the Bunker Hill monument as orator
https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/06/daniel-webster-on-bunker-hill-monument.html
- Newspaper reprintings, Ethan Allen in captivity
https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2018/01/more-newspaper-reprintings-of-melvilles.html
- Old Mortality and Melville's approach to rewriting history
https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2011/08/old-mortality-and-melvilles-approach-to.html
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