Hendricks House Omoo

Hershel Parker makes great use of Harrison Hayford's work on the Hendricks House Omoo in the first volume of Herman Melville: A Biography (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996 and 2002): 

"For separating fact from fiction in Omoo I rely primarily on the documents Hayford provided me (most of which he printed in the Hendricks House Omoo)...." 

-- Herman Melville: A Biography Volume 1, 1819-1851.

Likewise Mary K. Bercaw Edwards, in her introduction to the Penguin edition of Omoo, heartily commends the Hendricks House edition:

"Hayford's work for the Hendricks House edition remains the seminal publication on Omoo...." -- Penguin Omoo 

As the Penguin editor explains, "page proofs for the Hendricks House edition were completed in 1957, but the book was not published until 1969."

Despite generous citations by distinguished former students of Harrison Hayford, and by Canadian scholar Gordon Roper in the Northwestern-Newberry edition of Omoo, the classic Hendricks House edition of Melville's Omoo by Hayford and (did you know?) Walter Blair is not so well known as it should be.

The hard-to-find Hendricks House Moby-Dick is digitized in the Hathi Trust Digital Library. I was hoping to find the Hendricks House Omoo there too, but no dice. Yet.

Today's search at abebooks turns up just one ex-library copy at Easy Chair Books. I have one already so this one's yours. Another more expensive, and more tempting volume is the "excellent, collectible copy" offered for sale via Biblio by Rutter's Rarities. Inscribed by Harrison Hayford "to a fellow book rat." Yikes! It might be gone by the time you read this.

For now, here are two pages of Explanatory Notes from the copy I already own. Several of Hayford's notes pertain to the figure of Lem Hardy in Omoo.

Hendricks House Omoo, pages 354-5

Hendricks House Omoo, pages 356-7

Melville's "Old Zack" Anecdotes, in Yankee Doodle and some newspapers

In the summer of 1847, Herman Melville wrote anonymously for Yankee Doodle, the New York humor magazine then edited by his friend Cornelius Mathews. Melville's best and best-known contribution to Yankee Doodle was the mock-journalistic series on Zachary Taylor at war called "Authentic Anecdotes of 'Old Zack.'" As documented in textual notes to "Authentic Anecdotes" in the Northwestern-Newberry edition of Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, the New York Evening Post reprinted Anecdotes I and II on Friday, July 23, 1847; and part of Anecdote IV on Tuesday, August 17, 1847.

New York Evening Post - July 23, 1847
via genealogybank.com

Some of Melville's "Anecdotes" appeared also in other newspapers.

Melville's first "Old Zack" anecdote was reprinted from Yankee Doodle in the Lowell Daily Courier, Saturday, July 24, 1847.

Lowell Daily Courier  - July 24, 1847
Found at Fulton History

The Natchez Mississippi Free Trader, August 18, 1847 gave Anecdotes I and II from Yankee Doodle (via the New York Evening Post, as evidenced by the editorial preface copied verbatim from the New York paper).

Found on Newspapers.com

And on Wednesday, September 1, 1847 the Edgefield [South Carolina] Advertiser reprinted Anecdote II, crediting Yankee Doodle.

Found on Newspapers.com

Below, the first two of Melville's "Authentic Anecdotes," transcribed from the digitized volume of Yankee Doodle at Google Books.

ANECDOTE, NO. I

It is well known that upon the battle field the hero of Palo Alto is as cool as a Roman Punch. His surprising self-collectedness and imperturbability in times of the greatest peril, was never more forcibly shown than in a little circumstance at Buena Vista. A Mexican mortar being in full play upon the front of the American columns, a large shell with the burning fusee fizzing at the aperture weighing hard on 200 cwt., fell directly at the feet of old Zack, who, with his characteristic contempt of danger, was sitting on his horse upon a conspicuous knoll and was surrounded by several of his staff. Thinking it altogether fool-hardy and superogatory to stand still and be blown to pieces, the officers betrayed no delicacy in instantly galloping out of harm's way. But old ZACK moved not a peg. “ Don’t be alarmed, gentlemen," he observed quietly, shifting his attitude by throwing the other leg on the neck of his horse—“don’t be alarmed—them 'are chaps don‘t bust always. What will you wager now, Major BLISS, that the fusee doesn’t go out afore harm’s done?"* While the Major at a good distance leveled his long spy glass at the globular apparition, the old hero calmly took out his spectacles, polished their glasses by rubbing them gently against his thigh—clapped them on his nose—descended, and approaching the shell, bent over and closely scrutinized the fusee. It had just burnt to within a hair's breadth of the inflammable bowels of the shell—and old ZACK taking it between his fore finger and thumb, drew forth the fusee and waving it towards his aghast officers, quietly observed that if any of them had a cigar to smoke he could supply them with a light.

P. S. to Anecdote, No. I.—Mr. BARNUM happening to drop in when we opened our communications from our correspondent, we read him the above. He immediately seized pen and ink and wrote to a military acquaintance of his in the army, to institute a diligent search after the above mentioned shell—pack up carefully in cotton and send it on for his Museum with all possible despatch. Thinking, however, that the search might not prove effectual, Mr. BARNUM has given orders for a shell of the proper dimensions to be cast at one of the foundries up town. We feel confident, however, in stating that the latter will not be exhibited for the genuine article, unless the genuine article fails to come to hand.

* In all cases we give the old man‘s very words. If they show a want of early attendance at the Grammar School, it must be borne in mind that old ZACK never took a college diploma—was cradled in the backwood camp—and rather glories in the simplicity and unostentation of his speech. “Describe me. Sir," said he to our correspondent,—“describe me, Sir, as I am—no polsyllables—no stuff—it's time they should know me in my true light."

ANECDOTE, NO. II.

The Cincinnatus-like simplicity and unaffectedness of old ZACK's habits have frequently been celebrated. But it is not commonly known, perhaps, that he generally does his own washing. Of a pleasant evening, after the war-like toils of the day are closed, the old hero may be seen at the opening of his tent, sitting plump on the ground with a camp-kettle between his legs—and with shirt sleeves rolled up, creating a loud splashing of his garments in the suds. The old General by the way, wholly excludes hard soap as an unsoldier-like luxury, and uses nothing but the soft; a barrel of which furnishes part of his tent furniture.

The old hero, however, on account of his eye sight, is not very nimble with the needle. Nevertheless, he insists upon doing his own mending, and particularly prides himself upon the neatness and expedition with which he puts a new seat in his ample pants. These nether garments, of course, require frequent repairs, owing to the constant practice, and the habit the old hero has of violently slapping his person when
excited. At Buena Vista his being a long time in the saddle, united to the ire-provoking and dastardly conduct of the Illinois regiments, came near entirely rending them in pieces and it was late that night before the General retired, as he always makes it a principle not to permit his basket of new clothes to accumulate.

At Monterey, when the deputies from Gen. Ampudia first ushered the old hero at his quarters, they found him sitting cross-legged upon a gun carriage and earnestly engaged in letting out the seams of his coat—a proceeding necessitated by his increasing bulkiness.

--Yankee Doodle via Google Books - Authentic Anecdotes of "Old Zack"

This 1847 volume of Yankee Doodle with Melville's Authentic Anecdotes of Old Zack is also available courtesy of HathiTrust Digital Libary.

• https://hdl.handle.net/2027/chi.66322947

The great Walter Blair checked it out at the University of Chicago.

Dates for Melville's unsigned Yankee Doodle sketches in the "Old Zack" series are listed below, with links to digitized pages or online texts where I can find them:

"Authentic Anecdotes of 'Old Zack'" in Yankee Doodle vol. 2 (1847)

• Anecdotes I and II - July 24, 1847 
• Anecdote III - July 31,1847 
• General Taylor's Personal Appearance - August 7, 1847 
• Anecdote IV - August 14, 1847 
• Anecdotes V and VI - August 21, 1847 
• Anecdote VII and VIII - August 28, 1847 
• Anecdote IX - September 11, 1847

The pioneering study is by Luther Stearns Mansfield, Melville's Comic Articles on Zachary Taylor.

Related posts

• Personal appearance of Zachary Taylor, Melville's 1847 sketch and newspaper source
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/07/personal-appearance-of-zachary-taylor.html 

• Rewriting Old Zack
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/07/rewriting-old-zack.html

• Yankee Doodle, borrowed by Walter Blair
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2014/05/yankee-doodle-borrowed-by-walter-blair.html

Yankee Doodle, borrowed by Walter Blair

So Yankee Doodle is digitized! Much of it anyhow, although some numbers may be missing in this collection. We can look more into that later on...



I do remember once visiting a library somewhere to inspect Yankee Doodle--on microfilm, probably. Yankee Doodle you know has Melville's comic Authentic Anecdotes of Old Zack and probably some other bits he contributed in the summer of 1847, before getting married to Elizabeth Shaw.

This particular volume hails from the University of Chicago library. Look in the back! Sticking out of the pocket, there's an old library card with a few signatures, or names anyhow, presumably of students and faculty. 

The first listed borrower is W. Blair, a faculty member. Wow, Walter Blair. Due (or checked out? yikes, I can't even remember how the ancient system used to work) November 14, 1929. Then renewed until the end of August 1930, by or for Walter Blair. So he was teaching by then at the University of Chicago, while working toward the PhD he earned in 1931.
The legendary Walter Blair!

“Unsophisticated and frivolous, I elected to write a dissertation on a subject even less respected than American literature—our humor.”

--quoted by Hamlin Hill in Essays on American Humor: Blair Through the Ages (University of Wisconsin Press, 1993).