1980 Bobbs-Merrill Moby Dick

LG and I went to a used book sale, Saturday last, Round Lake NY, under the tent, books by the inch, local library thing.

Beautiful sunny day, one of the best days of the summer so far - tent sale was, well a tent sale.

And of course, there amongst all the boxes was one copy of Melville's Moby-Dick, the Bobbs-Merrill 1980, dark blue cover, one that exists in the collection already. 

"Should I get it, even though I already have one?"

"Ahhhh...." - LG

"Its my purpose to rescue all MD's no matter what, when I stumble on them, gives me copies to hand out to folks who request them, and its by the inch so what's this going to cost? a dollar?" Into the already expanding pile it went post haste. I bought $11 worth of books.

When I got home and compared it to the already existing Bobbs-Merrill I was surprised. Yes, they are the same book down to page layouts and page numbers, identical in all respects but one.  The newly rescued book is a half inch thicker! 

The one on the left is the original 1964 Bobbs-Merrill paper back, with original bill of sale,  and the one on the right is the newly rescued edition from Round Lake.  

2009 Chinese Language Moby Dick

电话我以实玛利


A second Chinese language edition arrived the other day. We used google translator to obtain the "Call me Ishmael" phrase above, and we are betting its not really close.


There are 42 chapters and 169 pages so we figure its abridged, dah..

The cover art, however, gets the golden TMDC WTF award, as the all time weirdest cover art.

That clearly is Venice, that clearly is a transparent Moby Dick flying thru the air, that clearly is  a motorized ferry boat at the dock on the other side of the canal, and there is someone, not Ahab, not Queegueg, holding a harpoon with his back to us.

Ah.. we dont get it... hence the award.

from coorespondence to the editor from V S one of our dearest chinese speaking friends:
Your current translation up there translates better as "phone me Ishmael." A better translation would be 称我(insert sinoticization of Ishmael here). I don't know what the official translation would be but 乙石馬 seems good to me and has the bonus of translating as "yi (a meaningless word) stone horse." That sounds pretty cool. Hope that helps. NOTE to VS: we sailed out of the STONEHORSE YACHT CLUB, Harwichport so its ok with us. Ed.

White Foam

This past weekend was the last weekend at White Foam, summer home at Chatham, Mass, for a couple of decades of William and Sally Pettit.

Sometime in the 1920's Mr. and Mrs. W. O. Pettit of New Brunswick NY,  with their two children began to take their summers at Harwichport Massacusetts renting here and there. Owning boats, sailing and fishing.

After the 1938 hurricane destroyed his summer home at Salters Point, Mr. and Mrs. D. C. Daniels of Worcester, Massacusetts began to summer at Harwichport, bringing along their two daughters.

Eventually the families would meet and William Jr. and Sally Daniels, fell in love, married and continued the summer tradition. The original White Foam is pictured below, on the beach at Harwichport, this was the summer home of William Pettit, Jr and Sally Pettit for most of the later part of the 20th century.

We are all thankful for having almost one hundred years of Cape Cod experiences, the stories we heard, the stories we experienced, the times of our lives, were ledgend.

William O. Pettit, Jr. became among other things a master boat modeller, although he would never admit to it. In the possession of the editor of TMDC is this whaling ship model built by W. O. Pettit, Jr., it is a model of the last active whaler to operate out of the eastern sea board in the early 20th century about the time that WOPettit and his family began to spend summers on the "Cape".

Some things are sad, and some are happy. Leaving Cape Cod behind is sad, the memories are happy.

1956-Czech Language -Rockwell Kent - MOBY DICK

Rikejte mi Izmael.

Lets see: here is a beautiful edition of the 1956 Czech language Moby- Dick. Printed in Praque an imposing size and signed and book-plated (left)

Even 1956 has to be slap dab in the middle of the Cold War...

Getting the info from the sales description: Bila Velryba (Moby Dick) by Herman Melville. Illustrated by Rockwell Kent. Published in Praha (Prague) in 1956 by Statni Nakladatelstvi Krasni Literatury, Hudby A Umeni. .... 663 pages. Hardcover. 7" x 9.5." ... The book itself is clean and in very good condition. Light wear only to dust jacket with dust and short closed tear on white rear panel.

biela velryba