Whale's Fountain in the Troy Daily Whig

Troy NY Daily Whig - November 13, 1851 via FultonHistory

This brief notice of Moby-Dick from the Troy Daily Whig is included in the Checklist of Additional Reviews but not transcribed in Herman Melville: The Contemporary Reviews, edited by Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker (Cambridge University Press, 1995; paperback 2009) page 416. Found in Tom Tryniski's great archive of old New York newspapers on fultonhistory.com:

MOBY DICK; OR THE WHALE. BY HARMAN MELVILE. HARPER & BROTHERS.

The author of "Typee" and "Omoo" is an indefatigable as well as popular writer. The reading public (and that in this country comprises almost every body) had hardly ceased its expressions of admiration for "White Jackett" and its predecessors, when it is presented by the same author with a thick octavo volume of some 650 pages characterized by all that clearness and depth of observation, quaintness, and originality, which have served to give his previous productions such wide popularity. From a hasty glance at its pages, we predict that "Moby Dick" will be universally regarded as "Melville's best."  [WM. H. YOUNG, 216 River-st.

According to the masthead, the Troy Daily Whig was then owned and edited by Charles David Brigham (1819-1894).



Two days later, the Troy Daily Whig reprinted all of chapter 85, The Fountain under the heading "The Whale's Fountain. / From Herman Melville's New Work -- 'Moby-Dick.' "

Troy NY Daily Whig - November 15, 1851 via via FultonHistory

The Whale's Fountain. 

From Herman Melville's New Work — "Moby Dick."

That for six thousand years—and no one knows how many millions of ages before—the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea, and sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep, as with so many sprinkling or mistifying pots; and that for some centuries back, thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the whale, watching these sprinklings and spoutings—that all this should be, and yet, that down to this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter minutes past one o'clock P. M. of this sixteenth day of October, A. D. 1851,) it should still remain a problem, whether these spoutings are, after all, really water, or nothing but vapor—this is surely a noteworthy thing.

The first paragraph features an intriguing variant in the month that Melville's narrator Ishmael gives when supposedly identifying the precise time of his writing on "this sixteenth day of December, A. D. 1851" in the first American edition, "1850" in Bentley's London edition. Published on November 15, 1851, the Troy Daily Whig version reads "October" instead of "December." The choice of "October" avoids the potential objection that Melville's narrator could not be writing the sentence a month after publication of the Harper edition. But the neat fix in the Daily Whig conveys a jolt of super-immediacy to contemporary readers that Melville might not have intended--unless the fix was somehow authorial, rather than strictly editorial. Another solution of the same textual problem would be to follow the British edition here, keeping "December" but emending "1851" to "1850," as in the 1988 Northwestern-Newberry Edition of Moby-Dick or The Whale.

The Buffalo, NY Western Literary Messenger version gives the same title, "The Whale's Fountain," and same credit line, "From Herman Melville's New Work—'Moby-Dick.'" Although published in February 1852, this text also reads "October" where the first British and American editions have "December."

Perhaps Western Literary Messenger editor Jesse Clement copied "The Whale's Fountain" from Charles D. Brigham's newspaper the Troy Daily Whig. Alternatively, both the Buffalo and Troy versions of chapter 85 in Moby-Dick with "October" instead of "December" could derive from a common exemplar.

Jamestown NY Journal - January 2, 1852 via NYS Historic Newspapers

Additional newspaper reprintings of "The Whale's Fountain" with the "October" variant:

• Rochester Daily American (Rochester, New York) November 21, 1851

Rochester NY Daily American - November 21, 1851
via genealogybank.com

• Jamestown Journal (Jamestown, NY), January 2, 1852

• Northern New York Journal (Watertown, NY), January 14, 1852 

Below, "The Whale's Fountain" as it appeared in the Troy Daily Whig for November 15, 1851; found on fultonhistory.com.

"The Whale's Fountain."
Troy Daily Whig, Nov. 15, 1851, 1 of 2

"The Whale's Fountain." 2 of 2

Related posts:

• Notice of Pierre in Troy Daily Whig
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2018/01/notice-of-pierre-in-troy-daily-whig.html

• Moby-Dick in the Western Literary Messenger
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/01/moby-dick-in-western-literary-messenger.html

Different versions for sure. Different manuscripts too?

The version of "Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man's Crumbs" that appeared in the August 1854 issue of The Western Literary Messenger shares many textual features with the printing of Melville's paired sketches in the Concord, New Hampshire Independent Democrat (June 29, 1854). How many? A lot more than I first realized. Before now I never bothered to read the Western Literary Messenger text closely, assuming it to have been reprinted straight from the June 1854 issue of Harper's magazine. Finding Melville's paired sketches in the Concord Independent Democrat (edited by George Gilman Fogg) made me look again at the known reprintings, in the Western Literary Messenger and also the Salem Register for June 19, 1854. The Salem Register version basically follows the text in Harper's. Not so for the later printings in Concord and Buffalo--which agree with each other in most of the places where they differ from the Harper's and the Salem printings.

The lists below identify many (not all) of the textual features that distinguish the Concord (C) and Buffalo (B) versions of "Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man's Crumbs" from the printings in Harper's (H) and Salem (S).

ABBREVIATIONS

• H = Harper's magazine, June 1854

• S = Salem Register, June 19, 1854

• C = Concord [New Hampshire] Independent Democrat, June 29, 1854

• B = [Buffalo, New York] Western Literary Messenger, August 1854

Where B departs from C the differences are mostly typos, mostly in B, for example: "mirrily" for "merrily" in "merrily dream of"; "Nw" for "No" in "No, said William, rising."; "haoked" for "hacked" in "hacked crust"; "in fouoled" for "is fouled"; "rack" for "reek"; and the misspelling "prooceed."

Of the numerous departures from the Harper's text that C and B share, some would appear, possibly, to reflect a manuscript exemplar at some stage of transmission, rather than or in addition to a printed one. The conjectured manuscript behind C and B was probably difficult to read in places, hence misreadings such as "earnestly" and "earnestness" for "enthusiastically" and "enthusiasm"; "thrice" for "trice"; and "magnificence" for "magnificoes." Not only that, the conjectured manuscript may have differed significantly in places from the printer's copy used by Harper's magazine. The availability of an alternate manuscript or manuscript stage might explain some of the more remarkable and suggestive variants in C and B, in particular:

• "thro' kind Nature"; "thro'" for "through" being a characteristic spelling for Melville in manuscript.
• extra dashes, again characteristic of Melville's narrative style. 
• the expression "once in awhile" in the Concord version ("once in a while" in the Buffalo Western Literary Messenger) seems hard to account for, unlikely to be merely a mistaken reading or careless transcription of "sometimes."

Harper's magazine - June 1854

Concord Independent Democrat - June 29, 1854

• friend Blandmour, "friend" being unexampled in the Harper's text.
• "tho't" abbreviating "thought" in CB replaces "mused" in the Harper's text. The difference appears to reflect either an illegible exemplar, or a different base-text. ("Thought I" occurs repeatedly in Melville's published writings, including short stories Bartleby and Cock-a-doodle-doo!--don't know yet about this contracted form, "tho't".)

You find rare wisdom in the woods, tho't I.  -- Concord Independent Democrat; and Buffalo Western Literary Messenger

You find rare wisdom in the woods, mused I. --Harper's magazine

Concord Independent Democrat - June 29, 1854

•  gulph, which Melville uses elsewhere, for instance in Moby-Dick chapter 3, "the Cape Horn measure, which you may gulph down for a shilling."

Western Literary Messenger - August 1854

Listed below are textual features shared by the Concord and Buffalo versions that distinguish them from the first known printing in Harper's magazine (June 1854), and the early reprinting from Harper's in the Salem Register (June 19, 1854).

POOR MAN'S PUDDING

1. "earnestly" in CB replaces "enthusiastically" in HS
2. no hyphens in CB for these: farm yard; spring snow; snow fleece; all bountiful; rain water; receipt book; wash tub; infirm looking; half rotten; heart trouble; washing day; picked up; dinner time; window sills; chimney shelf; stock still; maple sugar; good enough; up stairs; grindstone....
3. "earnestness" (CB) for "enthusiasm" (HS)
4. "Blandmour" in CB not "dear Blandmour"; 2x at least.  Thus: "...I presume, Blandmour" (but see the reverse below, #22: "dear Blandmour" for Blandmour).
5. "winter" singular not "winters" in "long, long winter here"
6. "itself" not italicized in "winter's snow itself"
7. long dash after "dear Blandmour—"; likewise dash not semicolon after "bodily harms"; dash after "poor man's house."; dash not semicolon after "give up the point altogether"; dash after "many autumns.—" dash after "aspect of the room.—" dash after "long way sir—"; after shavings away"; dash after "footfall was heard—"
8. "ever" not "never" in "Did you ever hear of the Poor Man's Eye-water?"
9. "there is" not conracted in "there is 'Poor Man's Plaster'"..."
10. "feed" not fe'ed as in "feed physician" (capitalized "Physician" in B, but "physician" in C)
11. Go on, go on (repeated expression in BC where HS have "Go on." once only.
12. "thro' kind Nature" abbreviated form, instead of "through kind Nature"
13. semicolon within parenthesis "for the benefit of my health;)"
14. no parentheses around "for the snow had thawed"
15. "1 o'clock meal" numeral in CB where HS versions spell out "one o'clock"
16. no dashes setting off "unobservantly" (emended to "unobservedly" in the Northwestern-Newberry edition): "unobservantly as I could"
17. CB have no comma after "old" in "old and constitutionally damp."
18. "blue eyes" plural in CB instead of "blue eye" in "soft, sad blue eye"; B has "her soft, and blue eyes" giving "and" instead of "sad"; C has "her soft, sad blue eyes"
19. CB have lowercase m's and t in "Poor man's matches" and "Poor man's tinder"
20. CB use question mark instead of period: "Ah, what they call 'Poor Man's Pudding,' I suppose you mean?"
21. "We" not italicized in "We do not call it so, sir...."; "must" not italicized in "must take all my meals at home"
22. Added "dear" in CB, "what dear Blandmour would have said" instead of "what Blandmour would have said"
23. "thrice" in CB for trice, "in a thrice"
24. CB have "friend Blandmour" instead of "Blandmour"
25. "But you don't eat pork" (CB) instead of "But you don't eat of the pork!"  (HS)
26. extra "a" "with a sly significance" in CB, not "with sly significance" as in HS
27. "I am off" in CB instead of "I'm off."
28. Poor man, lowercase 'm' in CB where HS have "Poor Man"
29. "But once in a while his man gives me a Sunday ride." (CB, with "awhile" as one word in C)
    "But sometimes his man gives me a Sunday ride." (HS)
30. "friend Blandmour" in CB instead of just "Blandmour" as in HS
31. "our wedding-day, sir" in CB instead of "the wedding-day, sir" as in HS
32. same reversed and misplaced parenthesis in CB, thus: "(and the soft, blue, beautiful eyes turned into two well-springs, ("
33. "self-upbraiding" singular in CB, instead of "self-upbraidings" as in HS
34. "bade the dame good-bye" in CB, good-bye instead of "good-by" as in HS
35. "ill-ventilated cold" in CB, mistake for "well-ventilated cold" in HS
36. "ruddy children" in CB, not "ruddy little children" as in HS
37. "tho't" not "mused" in CB, thus: "tho't I" instead of "mused I" (HS)

 RICH MAN'S CRUMBS

1. "George and Prince Regent" not "George the Prince Regent."
2. traveller (CB) not traveler (HS)
3. past tense "forgot exactly what" (CB) instead of "forget exactly what" (HS)
4. past tense came, "I came to roam and see" (CB) instead of "I come but to roam and see." (HS)
5. exclamation mark (CB) not question mark in "I hope you have not on your drawing-room suit!"
6. "a civil, as well as a civil guide" (CB) instead of "a civic, as well as civil guide" (HS)
7. was (CB) not were in "just the same as if I was pressed by a mob of cannibals...."
8. "; in the country it softens" (clause instead of new sentence: "In the country it softens." (HS)
9. dash in CB instead of semicolon, thus "not a sword—I know not"
10. Frederick William in CB not Frederic William (HS)
11. "mob of magnificence" (CB) instead of "mob of magnificoes"
12. "no windows" in CB instead of "No windows...." (HS)
13. splendid "everywhere" (one word in CB) instead of "every where" (two words in HS)
14. "pine tables" no hyphen in CB; sidewalk in CB not side-walk
15. "dined of that" in CB instead of "dined off that" (HS)
16.  "one broad gulph" in CB for "one broad gulp"
17. minus two "ands" in CB, thus: "Emperors, prince-regents, kings, and field-marshalls" instead of "Emperors, and prince-regents, and kings, and field-marshals...."
18. ...plain beef and bread; so the leavings are accordingly.—" (CB)
    ...plain beef and bread. So the leavings are according. (HS)
19. "red-gowned official near the board": near in CB instead of "nigh the board" (HS)
20. "me" italicized only once in CB, not twice as in HS.
21. "See!" with exclamation mark in CB, not "See?"
22. "not only stands your hat away"; "away" in CB, not "awry" as in HS.
23. added dash (no semicolon) in "an unfortunate friend--a simple spectator"; same in "You faint.--Ho!"
24. "banquets of kings" with lower case nouns in CB, not capitalized as in HS, "Banquets of Kings"; typo in C only, "bonquets"
25. CB have "mouthfulls" in "unsatisfying mouthfulls of disembowelled pasties...."; not "mouthfuls" as in HS.
26. "answered my back" in CB, mistake for "answered my beck"
27. "defined all tumblings and tearings" in CB; mistake for "defied all tumblings and tearings" (HS)
28. "Good-bye" in CB for "Good-by" in HS.
29. "addressing the driver on the box" set off by commas in CB, not dashes as in HS.

Related post

• Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man's Crumbs in The Independent Democrat
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2018/01/poor-mans-pudding-and-rich-mans-crumbs.html

Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man's Crumbs in The Independent Democrat

The Independent Democrat (Concord, New Hampshire)
via GenealogyBank

Herman Melville's short fiction Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man's Crumbs was first published in the June 1854 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine. Both of the paired sketches or "pictures" were reprinted from Harper's on June 29, 1854 in The Independent Democrat, published in Concord, New Hampshire.

The Northwestern-Newberry Edition of The Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860 locates only two reprints from Harper's magazine: in the Salem, Massachusetts Register on June 19, 1854; and the Buffalo Western Literary Messenger for August 1854. The headings and use of double quotation marks in the Independent Democrat version match the Harper's text rather than the Salem Register versions where "Poor Man's Pudding" and "Rich Man's Crumbs" are italicized in the subheadings, and single quotation marks are standard practice throughout. Even so, the immediate exemplar (Harper's? Salem Register? some other unknown version?) is hard to determine.

 The Independent Democrat (Concord, New Hampshire)
June 29, 1854

In the first sentence of Melville's story the Concord paper prints "earnestly" where Harper's and the Salem Register both read "enthusiastically." Further on, when Melville's narrator speaks "without equal enthusiasm" in the Harper's and Salem Register texts, the Concord Independent Democrat makes it "without equal earnestness." The change of "enthusiasm" to "earnestness" oddly but also quite deliberately reinforces the sense of the earlier usage of "earnestly," in place of "enthusiastically."

Salem Register - June 19, 1854

Later in "Picture First" the Concord Independent Democrat has the narrator refer to "friend Blandmour" where both Harper's and the Salem Register versions read only "Blandmour."

 "I suppose now, thinks I to myself, that friend Blandmour would poetically say--He goes to take a Poor Man's saunter." --Independent Democrat, June 29, 1854

Upon further review I see The Western Literary Messenger (August 1854) version exhibits the same quirks noted above, namely the calculated substitution of earnestly/earnestness for enthusiastically/enthusiasm; and the additional word "friend" in speaking of "friend Blandmour."

Western Literary Messenger - August 1854

More work will be needed to see what else the Concord editor made of Melville's diptych. The masthead names George G. Fogg as "Editor and Proprietor" of the Independent Democrat, published weekly in Concord, New Hampshire.

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  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2018/01/different-versions-for-sure-different.html

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Moby-Dick in the Western Literary Messenger

This excerpt from chapter 81 of Moby-Dick appeared in the Western Literary Messenger for January 1852 under the heading "Death Scene of the Whale." Edited by Jesse Clement, the Western Literary Messenger was published in Buffalo, New York from August 1841 through April 1857.

The next month, in February 1852, Jesse Clement's Western Literary Messenger reprinted all of chapter 85 under the heading, "The Whale's Fountain":




In August 1854 the Western Literary Messenger reprinted Melville's story "Poor Man's Pudding and Rich  Man's Crumbs" from Harper's magazine. Excerpts from "Israel Potter" in Putnam's Monthly appeared in the September 1855 number of the Western Literary Messenger under the heading Ethan Allen's Captivity.  The 1854 and 1855 excerpts are noted by Merton M. Sealts in Pursuing Melville, 1940-1980 and the Northwestern-Newberry edition of Melville's Piazza Tales.

Related post:

• Whale's Fountain in Troy Daily Whig
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/11/whales-fountain-in-troy-daily-whig.html