Digitized by Google Books from a volume at NYPL, formerly (as the stamp in the front shows) in the Astor Library, New York.
As the
Penny Cyclopaedia article indicates, illustrations and much of the text for this entry are from
The New Zealanders. On Melville's imaginative uses of
The New Zealanders in
Moby-Dick, you have to read
Whipscars and Tattoos by Geoffrey Sanborn. And
Sanborn's classy website is well worth checking out, not least for the helpful links.
Did the entry on Tattooing prompt Melville to consult
The New Zealanders? Howard Vincent suggested a similar pattern might be evident in
White-Jacket, of
seeing articles in the
Penny Cyclopaedia, then consulting works cited as sources for those articles--for instance,
Guthrie on Gun-Shot Wounds.
"...it is more probable that Melville had read these articles and then turned to the basic medical authorities from which the encyclopedists themselves had taken their materials." --The Tailoring of Melville's White-Jacket, 131
