1926 Modern Library Moby-Dick Cloth Cover

Recently aquired, the green cloth cover Modern Library Edition of Moby-Dick is the more deluxe version of the book already blogged in the  two prize post.

Chapter VI The Street

"Still New Bedford is a queer place."

Alas, in 1851 New Bedford seems such a fun town. Cannibals on the street corners and Green Mountain boys looking for adventure at sea.   Already alive and perhaps looking out the window of her father's stately mansion, Hetty Green, maybe even seeing Melville himself.

Hetty Green: we would first be aware of when passing the Hetty Green Motel in far away Bellows Falls VT on the way in 1964 to some ski adventure in the back seat of Dad's Buick Electra.  Only years later after much research did we understand the Victorian life of Hetty Green, to the point of making a pilgrimage to her grave in 2008.

Our mother summered at Salters Point, and her father would take her on Sunday visits to the Charles W. Morgan, at that time the play thing of Col. Ned Green, Hetty's son.

During our salad days when we would want to experience some form of prep school hi jinx, we would steal out of the dorm and drive to New Bedford. Really steal, we would obscond with one of the school cars, usually a black Ford Beach Wagon. We had keys made.

Melville: Whaling: Hetty Green: Ned Green: Charles W. Morgan: Family: New Bedford: YOUTH: SKIIING: HI JINX all intertwined and circling around the same being, those are touchstones that define lives.

1950 Modern Library Edition Moby Dick

The dust jacket illustration features Ahab, left pegged leg, sighting his position by shooting the sun with a sextant.

This copy, near perfect, is the #119 in the Modern Library series, published in 1950, right after WWII, in time for the economic expansion of the 50's. TV's just around the corner.

Chapter XV Chowder

As its getting colder here in Albany, I reread this chapter, a chapter of warmth and comfort, for there is nothing more comforting to this old salt on a cold day than a cup, no a bowl, of clam chowder.."the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt."

We love how Melville mixes it up: not salt and peppa but pepper before the salt. 

Chowder for breakfast, chowder for lunch, chowder for dinner, and never never never a red chowder, Manhattan chowder is not Chowder, I don't know what it is, but its not chowder.

1950 is the birth year of the editor of TMDC, and he too is shooting the sun to find his location.

1926 Modern Library Moby-Dick - Two Prizes

Here is the 1926 Modern Library Moby-Dick, classic red cloth cover from the house of Bennett Cerf, already covered in a previous post.

On the inside is a large award plate from the Halifax Academy, June 19, 1942 given to Douglas Rogers, for the Grade 10 prize in mathematics.

A search from Halifax Academy failed to produce anything for the school, only the motto E Mari Merces confirms the connection with Halifax Canada.

In thinking about this volume, given 69 years ago to a young Doug Rogers, we pondered how proud he must have been to receive it. We can see him walking up to the person who today would be called "head of school", shaking their hand and almost defiantly walking back to retake his seat among his peers.

We then recalled a similar award, given almost 19 years later to the editor of TMDC, who remembers all too well the elation he felt when he received the Armstrong Award at the Sheppard Knapp School, outside of Worcester Mass. - now defunct.  The Armstrong award was given in memory of a lad who fell from a tree to his untimely death. The precise characteristics of the children who received the award were always a mystery, it was not academic nor sports related. Now it could be said it was a catch all kind of thing, given to some kid otherwise left out of the award stream, perhaps too shy to have close friends, too normal to have successes in sports, too smart to excel in main stream academics. But a likable child non the less, a child everyone would agree was a good kid.

The letter in Olson's Small Boat Seamanship, with yellowing tape, is in the controlled precise and neat hand of Mrs. Halkyard, the wife of the Headmaster, and the woman who began Mr. Pettit's latin journey. There is a decided left learn to the letters, signaling perhaps left handedness, and an erie hand writing quality that is exactly similar to little Billy Pettit's own left handed mother's precise, controlled and neat handwriting.

We will assume that if the Armstrong Award were given today, or the Halifax Academy X Grade Math Prize for that matter,  in the form of an ebook, 40 years from now, that E Book would no longer function. It would have been recycled or jettisoned into the land fill long before. The memories just that, vague memories of a lad proudly receiving yet another electronic device, cutting edge for the moment. Fleeting... gone... dust... nothing left to share.

1944 Modern Library Giant Edition

The 1944 Modern Library Giant Edition Moby Dick features this blue binding with silver type and lighter blue offset.

We had always known that the Modern Library was the domain of Bennett Cerf, as he was a favorite of ours on the TV show "What's My Line" which ran from 1951 to 1967. As youths we were mesmerized by his patrician ways and seemingly endless knowledge while trying to guess the occupations and other "secrets" of the contestants.

Right up until the time we were shuffled off to boarding school, we watched him on Sunday nights. Perhaps, Bennett Cerf was one of our early "friends" keeping us company on those lonely solitary nights while the Duke and Duchess were off at some cotillion or other.

What we didnt know was that the Modern Library was started by Albert Boni, previously covered in this blog.

That running guy is the "Promethean bearer of enlightenment", for your information.

Here is an interesting link to a Modern Library web site.