Nobby Dick

via The New York Public Library Digital Collections

Derived from nob meaning "nobleman" or other "superior sort of person," the adjective nobby means "stylish; elegant; swell" according to Webster.

An early announcement of Herman Melville's death in the Chicago Tribune mistakenly referred to him as the author of "Nobby Dick," prompting this sarcastic comment in the New York Sun:

New York Sun - October 5, 1891

The Chicago Tribune editorially informs its readers that the late HERMAN MELVILLE was the author of the charming and well-known romance, "Nobby Dick." This novelette, as we understand, has long enjoyed a deserved popularity in Chicago's highest literary circles. The announcement of the authorship of "Nobby Dick" will clear up what has been a perplexing mystery to thousands of cultivated minds.  --New York Sun, October 5, 1891

09 Oct 1891, Fri Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) Newspapers.com

In reply the Chicago editor blamed the youth of two employees, the printer and proofreader:

The error pointed out by our fastidious and carping contemporary was due to the fact that THE TRIBUNE's proofreader probably belongs to that unfortunate younger generation which has never reveled in the adventures of "Moby Dick and the White Whale," and consequently was satisfied to leave it "Nobby Dick," as the printer, also of the younger generation, insisted upon having it.  -- Chicago Tribune, October 9, 1891

Battle-Pieces in The New York Sun

The New York Sun - December 7, 1866

  

BATTLE PIECES AND ASPECTS OF THE WAR. Poems, by Herman Melville. Published by Harper Bros., New York.

Mr. Melville has already a fair reputation as a poet and graceful writer, and this volume will meet a kind reception. The author has chosen themes for rhyme that would perhaps read better in prose — especially if written in his own easy, pleasing style. As descriptions of scenes and events, the book will doubtless prove one of much interest to thousands who participated in some of the many battles that form the staple of the author's praise and song. As poetry, there are few, if any, pieces that can be ranked above mediocrity. While throughout the whole volume there runs an unmistakable sentiment of true patriotism, Mr. Melville is yet liberal in his views, and generous enough to praise the virtues of his country's enemies. 

Clement C. Moore, "one of the most estimable, genial, and popular men of his day"

... the late Clement C. Moore, who will be remembered by all old New Yorkers as one of the most estimable, genial, and popular men of his day. He wrote the Christmas poem familiar to every nursery and school room, beginning, "'Twas the night before Christmas," and was well known in both the literary and the social world.
--The New York Sun, May 16, 1886

Moby Dick and Masefield in Jack B. Yeats's Little Fleet

Image Credit: Stephen Foster Books

This "Moby Dick" was a toy boat described and illustrated by Jack Butler Yeats in his 1909 children's book A Little Fleet. Ernest Marriott explains in his 1911 monograph on Jack B. Yates:

“A Little Fleet” is a description of the various toy-boats made by young Jack Yeats and his chums. The narrow winding stream and small pond at their disposal are magnified into a wide and treacherous river, full of whirlpools and snags, and running under beetling cliffs…. Another vessel they built was the Moby Dick, a steamboat with a cocoa-tin as paddle-box:—

She sailed down Gara valley,
She startled all the cows;
With touchwood in her galley
And green paint round her bows.

This boat did not live long, and eventually

She came to flying anchor
At the twilight time of day;
But the strain on the cable sank her—
And the crew, oh, where were they? 

One of five in the South Devon fleet, Jack B. Yeats's toy Moby Dick "was supposed to be a Mississippi River steamboat." Project Gutenberg has a nice eBook version of A Little Fleet; also available in the Villanova Digital Library.

The unnamed "Fleet Poet" to whom Yeats ascribes all the verses in A Little Fleet is John Masefield. From the New York Sun (March 31, 1912); available online at NYS Historic Newspapers and Chronicling America:

A whole summer Masefield and Yeats spent there loafing, talking and indulging in a sport which from a grownup’s point of view appears rather “tame” when indulged in by other grownups. They built little boats and sailed them down the Gara River. The Gara River is at its greatest width about four feet from shore to shore and its greatest depth is never over two feet.

The boats were all the way from ten inches to one yard in length and the two sillies topped the silliness of this pastime by writing quite scientific descriptions of their fleet accompanied by drawings, diagrams and charts and, now and then, a few stanzas due to the pen of the fleet’s poet, Masefield. --The New York Sun - March 31, 1912

New York Sun - March 31, 1912 via NYS Historic Newspapers

Openly indebted to the New York Sun article, the treatment of Masefield as "The Man of the Hour in English Letters" in The Literary Digest for April 13, 1912 highlights the story of Masefield as Sixth Avenue bar-back, but omits the matter of Jack B. Yeats and The Little Fleet.

The poetry of A Little Fleet also is credited to Masefield by Iolo Aneurin Williams in his 1921 John Masefield bibliography.

Hilary Pyle in her 1970 biography of Jack B. Yeats names the ships portrayed in A Little Fleet including the Moby Dick. In a later article she measures their significance, thus:

While the building and destroying of toy ships, and the creation of 'Pyrat' mythology, may seem somewhat immature in two men, one of twenty-five, the other thirty-three, the pursuit of such ideas certainly stimulated the imaginations of both. Neither ever lost his grasp on reality, or forgot how to distinguish between a real and a fairy-tale world.  --Hilary Pyle, "About to Write a Letter." Irish Arts Review - Spring 1985

On Pinterest, Margaret Miller has made a beautiful Jack B. Yeats board.

Here in Melvilliana, Masefield's glorious line from Sea Fever

"all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by"

has already been nominated as the very finest thing Herman Melville never said.

Related post:

• Masefield on Melville
  

Inscribed copies of Clement C. Moore's 1844 Poems

Photo Credit: Stewart Ogilby

On January 5, 1914 the New York Sun published a letter signed "M. W. Montgomery" that questioned the usual attribution of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" to Clement C. Moore and promoted the case for Henry Livingston, based on Livingston family lore. The writer was Mary Willis Montgomery (1850-1918), a descendant of Henry Livingston and Sarah Welles. Evidently misinformed on several counts, M. W. Montgomery professed ignorance of "any direct claim" by Moore to authorship of "A Visit from St. Nicholas." Her conjecture of an original, irretrievably lost printing of "Visit" in the Poughkeepsie Eagle is impossible, since the Eagle only became the Eagle in 1834, and did not exist in any form before 1828. The early newspaper version that Livingston family members recall reading and keeping was most likely the one in the Poughkeepsie Journal on January 16, 1828.

Found on Newspapers.com  The January 16, 1828 text of "A Visit from St Nicholas" in the Poughkeepsie Journal was reprinted from the National Gazette. It seems the Poughkeepsie editor had no knowledge of a prior appearance anywhere, let alone in his own newspaper. (And Major Livingston's published newspaper contributions typically were signed, "R.") Nevertheless, the 1914 letter from Mary Willis Montgomery, transcribed below, is an important document for Livingston genealogy and the history of authorship claims for Henry Livingston.

New York Sun - January 5, 1914

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN--Sir: An article in your paper of December 26 in which reference was made to the almost worldwide popularity of the poem entitled "A Visit from St. Nicholas" leads me to ask whether it is true, as I have heard stated, that the Rev. Clement C. Moore never himself made any direct claim to the authorship of this poem, which has been attributed to him. 

I ask this because the testimony which points to Major Henry Livingston as being its author appears to be too strong to be ignored, and it might be interesting to sift the evidence. Major Livingston lived near Poughkeepsie, in a house built by his grandfather, Gilbert Livingston, where, it is asserted by his children, he wrote the poem on a Christmas Eve, and read it to them the following morning. I have heard both a daughter and a granddaughter of Major Livingston say that they were present on that occasion and that the success of his poem in the home circle led Major Livingston to consent to its publication in a Poughkeepsie newspaper.

Neither the name of the newspaper nor the exact date of publication was remembered by them, but they were positive that it antedated by several years the publication of the poem in the Troy Sentinel. The original manuscript and a copy of the Poughkeepsie paper containing this first publication of the poem were in the possession of Major Livingston's oldest son for a great many years, but were lost after his death.

A letter in my possession, written by a daughter of Major Livingston in 1879, says: "I well remember our astonishment when we saw it [the poem] claimed as Clement C. Moore's many years after my father's decease, which took place more than fifty years ago. We have often said, 'The style is so exactly his; how would it be possible that another could express the same originality of thought, and use the same phrases, so familiar to us as father's!'"

I have heard it stated by the two ladies I have already referred to, daughter and granddaughter respectively of Major Livingston, and by his youngest son, that there was present as a guest in the house on the Christmas morning when the poem was read a young lady who derived so much pleasure from the reading of it that she requested Major Livingston to give her a copy, which he did. This lady, on leaving Major Livingston's house, went to the house of Mr. Moore, where she had been engaged as governess to his children. The testimony I have outlined is given in perfect good faith by people of the highest character.

How is one to sift the evidence? It would seem as if the only proof would be the date of first publication. Thinking that the newspaper in question might have been the Poughkeepsie Eagle, I applied at their office some years ago for permission to look over their back files of the 1820's, but was told that all had been destroyed in a fire that had burned out the Eagle office.

Major Livingston left a number of poems, all written with a light touch, and most of them in a humorous vein. A few were published in the local papers, but always, I believe, anonymously.

M. W. MONTGOMERY.
New York, January 3.

Mrs. Montgomery's 1914 letter to the editor of the New York Sun elicited swift answers in the same newspaper. In replies published on January 7, 1914, two readers cited inscribed copies of Clement C. Moore's 1844 Poems, which contains "A Visit from St. Nicholas" on pages 124-127, as strong evidence of Moore's characteristically "modest" claim to authorship of the Christmas classic.

New York Sun - January 7, 1914

John H. Morrison reported that he owned a copy presented "To Dr. Stewart with the respects of the author." A. S. Phelps said he owned a copy inscribed to his father, a student of Dr. Moore's at the General Theological Seminary, "as a token of friendship from the author."

From Philadelphia a few days later, Joseph Jackson wrote to express his wonderment over the very idea of an authorship controversy:

"That there should be any doubt as to Clement C. Moore's authorship of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" at this late day seems to be incomprehensible."

New York Sun - January 11, 1914

Mr. Jackson specifically called attention to the manuscript copy of "Visit" owned by the New York Historical Society. In view of Clement C. Moore's personality and character, Jackson reasoned that

"Dr. Moore's entire life, which was always quiet, retiring and modest, does not admit of the slightest hint that he purposely or involuntarily assumed the robe of another poet."

In 2008 Christie's handled a presentation copy of Moore's 1844 Poems inscribed to Nathaniel Paulding "from his old & sincere friend, the author."

Seth Kaller offers an association copy of the 1844 volume inscribed by Clement C. Moore to “Mrs. De Kay with the respects of the author, Mar. 1846.” "Mrs. De Kay" is Janet Drake De Kay, daughter of the celebrated poet Joseph Rodman Drake.

This day Abe Books lists five inscribed copies for sale. One copy to an unidentified recipient is available through The Fine Books Company.

Bauman Rare Books has one inscribed to "Mr. Miller, / From the author, / Dec. 1849".

Town's End Books has another copy inscribed

"To Miss Southey | with the respects | of the author. | June, 1844." On the verso side of the half title page, the author has also added a line of correction for page 58.

Glenn Books offers a presentation copy inscribed by Moore to "The Rev. Dr. Barry, with the respects of the author, Mar. 1846". The longest and perhaps most interesting inscription of all appears in the volume offered by Argosy Book Store. Moore presented this copy in Newport to a Dr. Raphall. The author's signed note reads

Newport, Sep. 2, 1850

Dear Sir,

I wish I had something to send you, better than this little book. But, such as it is, be pleased to accept it as a mark of respect from one of your much gratified auditors.

Clement C. Moore  

Rev. Dr. Raphall  --Argosy Book Store via AbeBooks

The Rev. Dr. Raphall can only be Morris Jacob Raphall who would become "the leading rabbi not only in New York—then the home of a quarter of the nation’s Jews—but in the country," as Howard B. Rock observes in his September 19, 2012 Tablet essay. As the Civil War began, Dr. Raphall also became famous for his controversial defense of slavery on biblical grounds.

Morris J. Raphall (1798-1868) via Library of Congress

In 1850, however, Dr. Raphall was embarked on "a public literary career" that first flourished in England, as Rabbi Henry Vidaver emphasizes in his 1868 memorial:

...very few English speaking Israelites knew the value and greatness of our Hebrew literature, and very few gentiles in England had a sound idea of Jew and Judaism. And at that time Dr. Raphall began to lecture and to write! A Jew lectures in English; in pure and sublime English; in the English of Addison, Hume, and Macaulay. What a marvel! And upon what subjects? Upon Hebrew poetry, upon rabbinical wisdom and literature!

My friends, I am not able to adequately describe the salutary influence his lectures and writings exercised upon Jews and Gentiles, especially in England; the immense good he effected for Israel and his religion….  
--"Memorial of Rev. Morris J. Raphall, Ph.D." in The Jewish Messenger, July 3, 1868

Arrived from Birmingham, England in 1849, Dr. Raphall lectured on Hebrew literature in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, and Richmond. "It was poetry illustrating poetry" according to the Richmond Whig notice of March 26, 1850. In August 1850 the Newport synagogue temporarily reopened for Dr. Raphall's course of six lectures on biblical poetry. Moore the seminary Professor of Hebrew attended one or more lectures, obviously, and pronounced himself one of the eloquent rabbi's many "gratified auditors."

In October 2015 Stewart Ogilby offered for sale the Ogilby family copy, neatly inscribed in October 1844 "To the Rev. Dr. Ogilby, with the best respects of the author." As described by Stewart Ogilby, this volume contains

"errata corrections made by Moore in this book in his own handwriting."

John David Ogilby (1810-1851) was a younger colleague of Clement C. Moore's at General Theological Seminary from 1841 to 1846. Former seminary student Clarence Augustus Walworth remembered Ogilby as an earnest controversialist, opposed both to "Romanism" and low-church fundamentalism. By contrast, Walworth recalled Clement C. Moore as "unconsciously" eccentric:

Santa Claus himself could not be more welcome to children than was this odd and genial man upon his appearance in the Hebrew class. He was very particular in his ways; but one great feature of his peculiarity was, that he was utterly unartificial. He was droll, but unconsciously so. He never joked in the class, but always something made the classroom seem merry when he was in it. He was a true scholar in Hebrew. His knowledge of Hebrew words did not seem to be derived from the dictionary alone. He knew each word familiarly, and remembered all the different places where it occurred in the Hebrew Bible, and so could prove its significance in one place by the meaning which necessarily attached to it elsewhere.  --The Oxford Movement in America

Additional volumes will probably emerge from time to time. For now we have identified ten copies of the 1844 Poems inscribed by Clement C. Moore, some with corrections apparently in his hand. 

***

Update 08/08/2026: inscribed copies of Poems by Clement C. Moore, not listed above

• Author's presentation copy, inscribed to Lady Lilford; with his holograph correction on p. [ii]. New York Public Library, Schwarzman Rare Book Division, Call Number Arents S 1093.

• Presentation copy inscribed: "To Mrs. Beebee, with the respects of the author." Sale by American Art reported in Book Dealers' Weekly for March 27, 1926.

• To Mrs. James L. Moore, with the respects of the author." Offered by Type Punch Matrix, Silver Spring, MD. 
  
  
• A presentation copy, inscribed "The Rev.d Dr. Jarvis, with the respects of the Author" on the half title. Offered by James Cummins Bookseller, ABAA, New York, NY. 
  
  
  

From our legal department: about Gansevoort Melville's autograph on the old Common Pleas Roll

New York, NY about 1842 / Image Credit: AES Online

An 1897 article in the New York Sun lists the name of Herman Melville's older brother Gansevoort among "noteworthy autographs" entered on "sundry loose foolscap sheets containing signatures of the attorneys who had been specially admitted to the bar in the Common Pleas between the years 1823 and 1846." Retired court clerk Nathaniel Jarvis, Jr. is credited with having the loose sheets bound in one volume, eventually to be placed (the writer of the article speculates) with the"Bar Institute."

OK, we need our lawyer now. Would that be the New York City Bar Association, or something like it? Does this volume of the old Common Pleas Roll now exist? Where? Maybe it's in the New York City Department of Records. Historic records including some Common Pleas archives are held at the Division of Old Records at 31 Chambers Street.

The lengthy 1897 tally of "noteworthy" names on the old Common Pleas Roll includes (for 1842, between Aaron Vanderpoel, Sr. and Richard B. Kimball):

"Gansevoort Melville, honored in Tammany Hall."

Wonderful and surprising, really, to find Gansevoort remembered this late as a Tammany orator.

One early and illustrious signature on the Common Pleas roll is "the cramped autograph of Charles Fenno Hoffman, who soon gave up law for literature, and wrote lyrics and songs." Other friends of Herman Melville with autographs entered in the roll are Cornelius Mathews (1837), Theodore E. Tomlinson (remembered as "the young man eloquent of the bar"), and George L. Duyckinck (1846).

The 1897 New York Sun article titled THE COMMON PLEAS ROLL is available via Fulton History:

http://fultonhistory.com/newspaper%209/New%20York%20NY%20Sun/New%20York%20NY%20Sun%201897%20Jan-Dec%20Grayscale/New%20York%20NY%20Sun%201897%20Jan-Dec%20Grayscale%20-%202254.pdf

The same old roll was described by James Wilton Brooks in his 1896  History of the Court of Common Pleas of the City and County of New York:

The original roll of the Court from 1821 to 1848, during which period every aspirant to the bar of the City of New York had first to be admitted to practice in the Common Pleas, shows almost every New York name which was prominent at that period, whether in the legal, social or business world. In those days every would-be lawyer had to pass several examinations before he was admitted to full practice.

He was first admitted to the Common Pleas as attorney at law. After three years of active practice he applied for admittance as counsellor at law to the Supreme Court. He had also to pass a special and supposedly equally thorough examination in the Court of Chancery.  (28-29)

Brooks in his Preface mentions having contributed the May 19, 1895 report for the NY Sun on the "End of the Common Pleas," so possibly he also wrote the 1897 Sun article that mentions Gansevoort Melville. Then again, the Sun writer's considerable knowledge of long-gone lawyers suggests an older writer or accomplice--perhaps A. Oakey Hall.

As reported also in the 1897 NY Sun article, Brooks's 1896 History notes that besides promising to uphold the Constitution, attorneys had to take the anti-duelling oath and swear never to participate “directly or indirectly in any duel.”