1939 Albert and Charles Boni, MOBY-DICK

We purchased this volume late last year. There was some discussion about it, since there is another copy in the collection. Here  However, the other volume has a nice blue cover with silver type and decoration, so we thought that this issue is an example of the continuing drag the depression placed on the economy in the late 1930's. Here the printer forgoes the silver. Yet the three gulls are still lovely.

Chapter LVI

From the ship, the smoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up like the smoke over a village of smithies; and to windward, a black cloud, rising up with earnest of squalls and rains, seems to quicken the activity of the excited seamen.

Life is full of black clouds, some pass quickly, and other linger. Here a black cloud calls the seamen to action, whether from excitement and anticipation, or from anxiety, we are not told. 

1931 Bonibooks Paper Back Moby-Dick

The earliest paper back in the collection, the 1931Albert and Charles Boni printing, is hard to find in any condition and commands a premium. It is lavishly illustrated with woodcuts by Howard Simon.  This copy is inscribed by Marianne Morrill.

Chapter LXXXI

Stubb speaks:

 "We all know what an astonishing atmospheric weight we ourselves stand up under; even here, above-ground, in the air; how vast, then, the burden of a whale, bearing on his back a column of two hundred fathoms of ocean! It must at least equal the weight of fifty atmospheres. "

The weight of the column of water on a whale's back is huge, but for the whale it is nothing. It is a trick, however, since the pressures are offset by natural mechanics. Something we humans all do naturally as well. 

1937 Garden City Publishing Co. Moby-Dick

Rockwell Kent is by far the best known of the Moby-Dick illustrators, and there are multiple editions that feature his remarkable work.  The Garden City deluxe edition has eluded us for many years. So happy we are to have recently scored this copy. 

Chapter 49

Ishmael, and the rest of the crew have topped off their last wills and testaments, and are preparing for the future:

Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my frock, here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and destruction, and the devil fetch the hindmost.

The future can no longer wait, its time to move on to things put off too long.

Undated - Books Inc, NY, Moby Dick

Here is the most unusual dust jacket edition in the collection. Guys with a football and a scottie dog! No where is to be found an image of a ship, whales, even the sea! Just a bunch of guys being guys, walking down a fight of steps.. Not one of them even has a book in hand!

On the back of the dust jacket this edition is called "The New Prize Guild Library" - The Worlds Best Books for Boys and Girls.

Moby-Dick is #17 in the series, which includes up to 37 Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

On the title page this is "Art-Type Edition" and "The World's Popular Classics"

The cloths and type style have a 30's feeling so I choose to mark it 1930's. Perhaps not. The lad on the right is wearing knickers (I wore them as a ski outfit in the 60's).

When referring to mens clothing, knickers is short for knickerbockers, while knickers in relation to women is something all together different.

1933 Albert & Charles Boni, Inc.

The Raymond Bishop illustration of Ahab.

Between pages 108 and 109, in chapter XXVIII, Ahab.

Striking is his grimace, and the odd stool decorated with wave like embellishments. The fact that the stool appears to be almost too small, sets up a tension in the graphic.

Bishop presents Ahab as tall and lanky, but clearly troubled with the image of the white whale, MOBY DICK, in the fog of his imagination, or is that the smoke of his pipe, recalling the Kent illustration.

This illustrated edition, chronicled in an earlier post, was placed on the market, several years after the Kent, perhaps the Boni Brothers were interested in coat-tailing on the success of Random House's edition.

There will never be an electronic image as satisfying as this printed paper image, alas.

1931 Saalfield Every Child's Library Moby-Dick

Ahab, ready to strike.

MOBY DICK. Melville, Herman; Saalfield Publishing Co; NY; 1931. Hardcover with no jacket. Edge wear and surface rubbing; pages tanned, tightly bound.

Cover : Green Cloth 6 x 8 1?4

Spine not marked ILLUSTRATED and line

1 5/8 thick

309 ppgs

Frontice Illustration by C Lawson

1930 Random House Moby-Dick

The classic Rockwell Kent illustrated edition. #21 in the collection, purchased on Ebay.

New York, Random House, 1930. First trade edition. Thick small 8vo. 280 woodcut illustrations (including chapter headings and tailpieces), spine, upper cover illustrations by Rockwell Kent. Original black pictorial cloth stamped in silver. NEAR FINE, fresh bright copy with minor rub to cover stamping a

bove whales head, lower tips little bumped. No signatures or bookplates. Nice copy of a handsome edition of this classic.

I have choosen this edition to begin a series of postings of the illustrated books in the collection. And specifically, Kent's choice to introduce an Ahab illustration in Chapter XXX, is classic: no peg leg, no crazy eyes, just Ahab in a strangely pedestrian hat, pondering his pipe and its addiction, just before heaving it over board, in a way denying himself its pleasure....

1931 Saalfield Every Child's Library Moby-Dick

In 1900 Arthur J. Saalfield founded Saalfield Publishing Company in Akron, Ohio, which from that date to 1977 published children's books.

The Archives of the Saalfild Publishing Company were purchased by Kent State University and housed there.

This edition was illustrated by Alfred Conyers, with seven illustrations, contains 309 printed pages.

Details:

Light blue cloth covers with dust jacket

measures 5 1/4 in by 7 5/8 in and is 1 1/4 inch thick.

Spine is market ILLUSTRATED with a line

Here are 5 copies of Saalfield Moby-Dick's, all Identical with the exception of size and color of the binding.

For later inclusion I am preparing a series of posts of the various illustrations of Ahab.

1933 Albert and Charles Boni, Inc. Immortality!

#29, the 1933 Albert and Charles Boni, Inc. illustrated edition.

I was given this Moby-Dick by Mark Scott, who was at the time a tenant of mine, and was attending the University at Albany Library School. He obtained his degree in Library Science and moved on.

Raymond Bishop is the credited illustrator, but a search of the web turned no references to this illustrator.

The book is inscribed by Katherine Benton, 22 April 1935 in a precise hand. Nicely done. A search of the web turned up no references to Katherine Benton.

According to his New York Times obiturary, Charles Boni, 1895 - 1965, and his brother formed the concern that bore their names from 1923 - 1928. Although this book is dated 1933, the New York Times states that the business "died in the stock market crash of 1929"

So, this copy, #29 in the collection, contains three mysteries to still be solved: who was Raymond Bishop? Who was Katerine Benton? and how did the defunct Albert & Charles Boni, Inc. publish this book 4 years after its supposed demise?

But a wider issue to be contemplated is this: Within this book is the immortality of Katherine Benton, save for this one notation, she may have slipped in to oblivion. Maybe not, there maybe family who know her story, and certainly, she may still be alive. But also, within this book, Raymond Bishops work, however brief, still exists, and the manufactured efforts of Albert and Charles Boni, and the workers who crafted this book, still exists.

Next: 2 posts, each of the Christmas gifts I received this year..