Original research and riffs on Herman Melville, authorship, and nineteenth-century American literature.
Rare Autographs, Manuscripts & BooksThis previously unlocated letter to Prof. T. Apoleon Cheney is listed in Melville's CORRESPONDENCE (Northwestern University Press, 1993) edited by Lynn Horth on pages 402-403. In my first look at the manuscript image online, I read "poems" where the University Archives… https://t.co/LmpixBRmMs
— Scott Norsworthy 🇺🇸 (@Melvilliana) September 18, 2025
Uncredited, Herman Melville's 1854 short story "The Fiddler" was reprinted (presumably from Harper's magazine) in the Columbus, Ohio Daily Dispatch and Daily Ohio Statesman on September 22, 1873. Edited version, mostly complete but strategically revised to eliminate the… pic.twitter.com/xAPUJ192qz
— Scott Norsworthy 🇺🇸 (@Melvilliana) August 7, 2025
"Duyckinck wrote reviews for an Episcopal magazine, the Churchman , and in March of 1854 was officially announced its literary editor. But by May he was able to tell Simms that he and George had decided to devote themselves heart and soul to that other ambition of Evert’s life, a… https://t.co/fpuXbi7O8A pic.twitter.com/cmpRAhePS6
— Scott Norsworthy 🇺🇸 (@Melvilliana) August 3, 2025
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| Prang's aids for object teaching. Printer. ca. 1876. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2003663928/. |
Albert W. Whelpley (1831-1900) was head librarian of the Cincinnati Public Library when he commemorated "The Old-Time Printer" in a delightful and highly informative after-dinner speech, delivered January 17, 1898 at the annual meeting of the Cincinnati Typothetæ. Although long forgotten, Whelpley's talk is full of historical interest and value, being rich with details of his personal experience as a printer's devil and compositor in New York City from 1846 to 1856 or so. Melville aficionados will be especially interested in Whelpley's reminiscences about working at "the widely known printing office of Robert Craighead, on the corner of Fulton and Dutch streets." Whelpley quit with most of his coworkers during a labor strike, possibly in early May 1853 when journeymen book-printers went on strike in New York City.
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| New York Weekly Journal of Commerce - May 5, 1853 |
In 1853 or later, Whelpley rejoined his old boss at 24 Beekman Street, where Tinson operated his own printing office, "also a famed one." Working there for W. H. Tinson, Printer and Stereotyper, Whelpley became personally acquainted with George P. Putnam and numerous other literary celebrities. A. W. Whelpley never once name-drops Herman Melville during his 1898 talk before the Cincinnati Typothetae. However, Whelpley somehow managed to acquire one of Melville's letters to Putnam (9 November 1854) concerning the magazine version of "Israel Potter." Submitting the concluding chapters in manuscript, Melville thus explained why he did not number them:
“Having forgotten the number of the last chapter sent you, I leave the numbering of the following ones to the printer.”
By his own account, Whelpley seems to have been employed as a compositor for W. H. Tinson in 1854 through April 1855 when Tinson's printing office set all of Putnam's Monthly Magazine in type, including the magazine version of "Israel Potter" which concluded in the March 1855 issue. If so, Whelpley might have indirectly received Melville's note to Putnam via Tinson. In any case, Whelpley got it somehow or other and eventually gave it to the Cincinnati Historical Society, as helpfully indicated in the Northwestern-Newberry Edition of Melville’s Correspondence, edited by Lynn Horth (Northwestern University Press, 1993) at page 273. Whenever and however Whelpley first acquired it, Melville’s autograph letter of November 9, 1854 to George P. Putnam would have held personal significance as a memento of his youthful occupation in New York City, “working for W. H. Tinson, on Beekman Street.”
The complete text of A. W. Whelpley's encomium of "The Old-Time Printer"is transcribed below from The Printer & Bookmaker (July 1898) pages 230-234. Digital versions of the printed speech are accessible via Google Books
https://books.google.com/books?id=HITnAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA230-IA14&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
and courtesy of HathiTrust Digital Library, here:
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/umn.31951001904120c?urlappend=%3Bseq=580%3Bownerid=13510798902360098-596.
Enjoy!
*An address delivered at the annual meeting of the Cincinnati Typothetæ.
THE printer of the olden time! It is a theme so glorious that it should have been delegated to be handled by some one more practiced in the art of oratory and after-dinner speaking than he who is to address you. Some one whose well-rounded sentences and resonant voice should stir your natures to their very depths—one who might be able to paint glowing wordpictures of that glorious trinity of men who gave the art its birth! Of Gutenberg, Fust and Schoeffer, whose names have come down through the centuries laden with honors; whose triumphs have been sounded in every land and in every language! Gutenberg, inventing movable types, and constructing a rude printing press to take his impressions from them; Fust, inventing the ink with which to make this possible; and Schoeffer, who, conceiving the plan to make better and more effective types than those used, cut a set of matrices to cast them in, which so delighted his master, Fust, that he gave him his only daughter for a wife!He might take a long leap, and come to the men who, in the early days of this country, gave such renown to the printer's art, William Bradford, who came to America with William Penn, and Benjamin Franklin—both grand types of the old-time printer. And if he was to "the manner born" he could discourse eloquently of three old-time printers whose names are inseparably linked with this "Queen City of the West," Joseph A. James, Ephraim Morgan, and Achilles Pugh.
But I am not equal to anything so lofty in conception, and propose to go back only half a century, to give you a few reminiscences, beginning with the business career of a slightly built, not over-strong, curly-headed youth, who, at the age of about thirteen years, thought the time had come for him to quit school and face the world to earn his own living.
A school-boy friend, who was already at work, secured him a position in the same office where he was employed, and in the autumn months of 1846 this boy, who had never been away from his home except in school hours, trudged gaily to the office in which he was to begin his career, to take the responsible situation of a printer's devil! This service consisted of various important duties, the most responsible of which was rolling a form for ten hours a day—from 7 to 12 A.M., from 1 to 6 P.M. When there was no form on the press, he was to busy himself as best he could. The other duties were to build the fires, make the lye with which to clean the forms, and wash the rollers; gather up the soiled towels to take home to his employer on certain nights of the week, and call for them on certain mornings; in fact, being a "general utility" for everybody about the place.
He can remember as well as if it were yesterday what a formidable undertaking it seemed to get through a day's rolling—and to count the tokens in his mind, as the sheets were "worked off," ten hours a day, ten tokens to be printed, to make a fair day's work. At the office at 6 to build the fire, and rarely getting home to his supper before 7:30 at night. Such was the life, and such were the duties of a boy in the 40's who was fortunate enough to secure a situation as a printer's devil. The pressman under whom he worked was a kind-hearted, phlegmatic Scotchman, named Archie Naughton—and he can call him to mind always—an old-time pressman who is deserving of a grand reward in the future life. He was very considerate of his devil, and always lightened his duties where possible—and never spoke a cross word.
The hours of service required would alarm a printer boy of this day, and would cause an eruption in the labor unions; but the young devil felt them no especial hardship; and he tumbled into bed at an early hour after supper, with his mother's blessing and a good conscience, and slept soundly the "sleep of the just," for, as he had not many temptations, he had few worries, as yet, to trouble his slumbers. He generally got his breakfast by 5:30, and in the dark hours of the winter mornings was well on his way to the office before 6 o'clock.
The boy was happy! and it was not long before he evinced some skill in setting type (which he learned in the noon hour, supposed to be devoted to dinner), and it was but a few months before he bade a not over-affectionate adieu to his rolling duties! It may be interesting to say that he was succeeded by an inking machine, which had just come into use.This introduction to the printing business was in the office of John W. Oliver, on the corner of Ann and Nassau streets, New York, in the same building where the well-known Quaker printer, Daniel Fanshawe, ran his presses. A few months later this office of John W. Oliver was removed to the corner of Fulton and Nassau, in the old Sun building, and by that time the boy, who only a little while before had rolled forms, had now become quite a respectable job hand, and could run a job press very well. He preferred composition, however, and when opportunity offered would "stick type" on a weekly temperance paper called The Organ, published by Mr. Oliver, who was an ardent "Son of Temperance," an order then in its infancy.Printer boys in those times were sturdy young fellows, that disdained to wear such undergarments as shirts and drawers, and some of whom would have discarded stockings, but for the interference of home folks. I can see this young boy, with his shirt sleeves rolled up to the full extent, his shirt front unbuttoned, with a paper cap on his head, to protect the luxuriant locks, that were his pride, from dirt and dust. When these conditions were fulfilled, the printer boy was in full uniform, and ready for business.He soon made a change to an office managed by a literary Irishman, Dennis Hannegan, well known as the author of "The Orange Girl of Venice," a blood-curdling novel. Dennis was a clever and an honest man, and though he could not pay his hands their wages in cash, he gave them the equivalent in paper novels, all of which were read without death ensuing.Dennis did a good thing for the subject of this sketch by kindly giving him a letter of introduction to W. H. Tinson, an excellent printer, at that time the best-known foreman in New York, and manager of the widely known printing office of Robert Craighead, on the corner of Fulton and Dutch streets. He was of a just nature, but a violent temper. Mr. Tinson honored the introduction, and took the boy, stipulating that he should serve his time at two-thirds men's wages, either working by piece or by the week. And it seemed a great piece of good fortune to drop so easily into such a situation.This office literally swarmed with compositors of wonderful intelligence. It was an office in which slack times were seldom known. It had the cream of literature, as it had the pick of workmen. Here was a representative body of old-time printers that could discuss composition, rhetoric, punctuation; who were conscientious in spacing and leading; who would criticise bad work, and were intolerant of inferior workmen; who gave close attention to all the technicalities that go so far to improve the looks of the printed page. Men who would quarrel with the proofreader when they thought him wrong, and oftentimes carry their point. They were a representative set of old-time printers—middle-aged men—and younger dare-devils who could dance all night and work all day. It is doubtful if ever such another office existed, where there was so much wisdom and so much mirth combined, and so much good and conscientious work accomplished, with the pay so sure. All the grand English reviews, Blackwood's Magazine, the Literary World, the Medico-Chirurgical Quarterly, and scores of books from those reputable publishers, Wiley & Putnam, Scribner, Wood, Dodd, Carter Brothers, and others, were constantly in process of composing, stereotyping and printing.Looking back through half a century, it is a gratification to call to mind the well-educated printers of that establishment. Many of them were Englishmen, who had served their apprenticeships in the old country, and were authority on every technical point of the printing business. How well they had studied their grammars, and how true were their ideas of the niceties of punctuation!These printers of the olden time were always in the lead on affairs of the day. They could intelligently criticise the pulpit, the stage and the press. They could quote Scripture without limit, and were up in every current joke, and often very humorously repeated questionable stories—a custom not yet obsolete—which dates back, however, to Boccaccio—and in which art many of them were masters.That office had a coterie of men (of which the boy of whom I am speaking was the youngest member) who by filling responsible positions as editors of prominent newspapers, writers of dramas, important military positions, have given good evidence of the value of the training of the printer of the olden time—one becoming a librarian, and one now bearing the best known name in the annals of printing in America, Theodore L. De Vinne.These printers of the olden time, in this particular office, had prime opportunities to jostle against the men who were giving to America its literature; and the boy whose history I am giving you was particularly favored. He saw many celebrities, and was noticed by not a few. Here came James Fenimore Cooper, Charles Fenno Hoffman, George P. Morris, Nathaniel P. Willis, Rufus Griswold, Horace Greeley, Evert and George Duyckinck, and a host of others who are among the immortals in American literature.One more change, and the boy, now grown to manhood, as far as his reminiscences in this city of his birth go, are completed.There came a strike—we all know what strikes are—and every man and boy, except two, marched out from this home which had done so much for them for so many years. And the young man, true to his fellow workmen, but against his inclination, went with them, and bade adieu to the office of Robert Craighead forever. After forty years or more he pays the tribute to him which is deserved, and will never fail to cherish his name gratefully. The boy's career in New York closed with working for W. H. Tinson, on Beekman street. And this office was also a famed one. Here he made friends with the versatile publisher, George P. Putnam, and met and conversed with Bayard Taylor, Frederick Cozzens, author of the "Sparrowgrass Papers," John Brougham, Edward Stephens, author of "Jonathan Slick in New York," Tuckerman, the essayist, our Western poet, W. W. Fosdick, and Frederick Saunders, author of "Salad for the Solitary;" in this office was printed John Mitchel's Citizen, and here came daily those Irish patriots, John Mitchel, John Savage, Thomas Francis Meagher, and scores of others. These were the days when the author came to the printing office with his proofs, and often explained his corrections and the wherefores to the compositor.These sometimes happy (sometimes otherwise) days came to end, as far as New York experiences are concerned, when this old-time printer came to Cincinnati for a brief visit. That visit has extended to over forty years; and while he oftentimes thinks of what a field he might have had in the city of his birth for growth, he in no wise lacks appreciation of the honors which his fellow citizens of Cincinnati have shown him, and of which he has always endeavored to be deserving! Nor does he in any wise lack appreciation of Cincinnati itself, in which community he feels that his life and his sympathies have so broadened, and in which for so many years he has lived so happily.
But Cincinnati was a new field for the young New Yorker. By force of filial duties he felt obligated to remain, though he was leaving all behind—birthplace, familiar scenes, friends and companions, yet he bravely accepted the new responsibilities, and for the third time was compelled to "seek a job." An introduction from a genial old-time printer of that day, Caleb Clark, sent him to the Franklin Type Foundry, where he received a welcome. There he remained (excepting a month or six weeks, when he was with dear old Mr. Thompson at the Methodist Book Concern), and in time came to have entire charge of the composing room. This business was then superintended by a gentleman who sits here to-night, Mr. Robert Allison, and I look back with pleasure to the period between 1857 and 1864. I think he parted with me with regret, when at the latter date I entered a new field of labor. During all the years that have passed his friendly interest in the young man—above I unconsciously dropped into the first person—has often been shown. He is to be congratulated on his long years of service in the profession, on his position as an employing printer, and on being one of the foremost citizens of Cincinnati.
The printer of the olden time! What memories are awakened—what thoughts will come of by-gone days and men who lived in them—heroes of the composing stick!
The printer of the olden time, and the printers of to-day, and all time, are and will be the greatest factors of our civilization. The preacher may touch our hearts with his glowing words; the actor may dazzle our eyes and charm our ears with the beauty of his scenic effects and the fervor of his declamation; the singer may enchant us with the rhapsody of his melody; the lecturer and statesman may make our minds captive by the force of their eloquent periods—but all their efforts would be as temporary and evanescent as were the lays which of yore the minstrels chanted in kingly courts, were it not for the Art of the Printer—the Art preservative of all the arts. His silent types and inks transfer to the printed sheet the words of the preacher, the lines of the actor, the song of the musician, and the speech of the statesman, and send them forever down the ages to an immortality which otherwise could not be.
Christopher Patterson recently discovered this notice of Moby-Dick; or, The Whale in the Poughkeepsie Eagle for December 6, 1851. It's not collected in Herman Melville: The Contemporary Reviews, edited by Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker (Cambridge University Press, 1995). The Poughkeepsie Eagle was a weekly newspaper, then published every Saturday morning in Poughkeepsie, New York by Isaac Platt and William Schram.
MOBY-DICK; OR, THE WHALE. By Herman Melville, author of "Typee," "Omoo," "Redburn," &c
—The above work is founded on
"That sea beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean stream."
It is full of interest from beginning to end, and promises to be the most popular of Melville's writings. The characters are various, each imparting peculiar interest to the reader. We respectfully dedicate it to all of our numerous readers. For slae [sale] by W. Wilson.
I'm counting this newly discovered notice of Moby-Dick in Poughkeepsie as favorable 🥰 and will add it to the census of early reviews, here:-- Poughkeepsie Eagle, December 6, 1851; found on newspapers.com
