This early notice of Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale in the Baltimore Patriot and Commercial Gazette (November 15, 1851) was reprinted in the weekly Lutheran Observer (November 28, 1851). Some years back I found the later version and guessed it had been copied from another newspaper:
Neither item is transcribed or listed in Herman Melville: The Contemporary Reviews, edited by Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker (Cambridge University Press, 1995), still the biggest and best collection of 19th century Melville criticism in print.
At the time of this notice the Baltimore Patriot was owned and edited by Isaac Munroe in partnership with Joshua Jones and John F. McJilton.
Baltimore Patriot and Commercial Gazette - November 15, 1851
via genealogybank..comMOBY DICK; OR THE WHALE. By Herman Melville, author of "Typee," "Omoo," &c. N. York, published by Harper & Brothers; Baltimore, sold by Cushings & Bailey, 262 Baltimore street, opposite Hanover street.NEW PUBLICATIONS.
This new work by the author of "Typee" takes us back to the scenes where that wondrous and wonderful narrative had its origin, and makes us the companions of whales, those monsters of the deep, whose history is here dressed in all the enchantment of romance, and all the power of reality. The voyage of the writer from New Bedford to the whaling ground,--if one may so call the waters in which the fishes live and have their sports--is full of events, interesting, instructive, and pleasant to read. We reach the Pacific, where the whales revel, and there we see how they live, how they are captured, and how they are "boiled down" and made food for fire. It is a pleasant, agreeable, instructive, amusing work, and right glad will the reader be to take the voyage, in his "mind's eye," over which it carries him.
-- From the Baltimore Patriot of November 15, 1851; reprinted in the Lutheran Observer and Weekly Religious Visiter (Baltimore, MD) on November 28, 1851; digital versions of both items can be found in the great newspaper archives at genealogybank.com.
In 1845 a Washington correspondent of the Baltimore Patriot (March 21, 1845) vividly described Herman's older brother Gansevoort Melville, allegedly angling for a diplomatic appointment, as
"a tall, very tall, genteel, well-enough-looking young man, with a large nose and sandy whiskers, and quite a lady’s gallant...."
Related posts
- Moby-Dick in Kurtz's Lutheran Observer
https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2020/02/moby-dick-in-kurtzs-lutheran-observer.html
- Moby-Dick widely praised in 1851-2
https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2020/02/moby-dick-widely-praised-in-1851-2.html
