Here's something new and wonderful in its way, a previously unrecorded notice of Moby-Dick in the New York Farmer and Mechanic for November 29, 1851. This item is not in Herman Melville: The Contemporary Reviews, edited by Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker (Cambridge University Press, 1995; paperback 2009) although the "Checklist of Additional Reviews" there on page 291 does include the notice of Redburn published in the Farmer and Mechanic on November 29, 1849.
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| New York Farmer and Mechanic - November 29, 1849 |
The Redburn item is transcribed by Richard E. Winslow III in "Contemporary Notice of Melville at Home and Abroad," Melville Society Extracts 106 (September 1996) pages 1-11 at page 6.
Published weekly in New York City, the New York Farmer and Mechanic was edited by William Holt Starr (1808-1884), better known today for his previous acquaintance with Edgar A. Poe in connection with the Broadway Journal. About Starr, see the recent note by Jeffrey A. Savoye, "More on 'A Forgotten Recollection' ” in The Edgar Allan Poe Review (2024) 25 (2): 220–221. <https://doi.org/10.5325/edgallpoerev.25.2.0220>
In January of 1851 "W. H. Starr" was listed alone on the masthead as sole "Editor and Proprietor" of the Farmer and Mechanic. When the favorable notice of Moby-Dick (misspelled "Mobby-Dick," twice) appeared in the Farmer and Mechanic, re-titled Farmer and Mechanic and American Cabinet, the masthead named O. F. Parker as Publisher and Associate Editor. William H. Starr was by then identified only as Editor; and former "Traveling Correspondent" E. P. Whitmore as another Associate Editor. In 1847 the journal had been co-edited by Starr with John Milton Stearns (1810-1898).
Transcribed below, the endorsement of "MOBBY-DICK" in the New York Farmer and Mechanic (Saturday, November 29, 1851) appeared third in a group of six "Literary Notices" (or seven, counting the short promo at the end for popular sheet music), all positive: after notices of the American Muck Book by D. J. Browne and Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers; before the notice of London Labor and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew and brief remarks on Appleton's Mechanics' Magazine, and the London Horticulturist for November.
LITERARY NOTICES.
... MOBBY-DICK; or The Whale, by Herman Melville. Harper & Brothers. This book, is beyond all question, Herman Melville's best. It might be called the "Whaliad" or the history of the whale. At all events it is the first work that ever laid bare the form, size, and habits of the great leviathan, and gave the reader an insight into all the art and mystery of whale fishing. Mr. Melville has interwoven his experiences into the form of fiction, wherein the celebrated whale "Mobby-Dick" and a Nantucket captain are the pivots, and he traverses every ocean, in the true style of a sea sportsman. The author's heart, soul, and stomach are in the business; his legs, arms, eyes, muscles and mind. The details of the whale hunts, the dangers, fatal accidents, and the character of the hunters, render it altogether, not only the most entertaining, but really the most useful book that we have had for many a day.
-- New York Farmer, Mechanic, and Cabinet, November 29, 1851
I will add this now to the inventory of 1851-2 reviews of Moby-Dick, posted on Melvilliana here:
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