2010 Turkish Language MOBY-DICK

Ishmael deyin bana

Whenever the editor's sister travels abroad, and believe us when we say she has more air miles than Chuck Yaeger, she keeps an keen eye out for an edition in the language of the countries she travels in, thru or to. 

Success, this last trip, in Constantinople. (Melville knew this place by that name)

Chapter  XLIV THE CHART

But granting all this; yet, regarded discreetly and coolly, seems it not but a mad idea, this; that in the broad boundless ocean, one solitary whale, even if encountered, should be thought capable of individual recognition from his hunter, even as a white-bearded Mufti in the thronged thoroughfares ofConstantinople? 

Here Melville imagines the torment Ahab endures the early sailing of the oceans, willy nilly, waiting for the correct season to find MOBY DICK in his feeding grounds. And asks how crazy is it to look for one whale in the whole ocean, like how crazy is it to search for that one white bearded man in a sea of black bearded men.

2009 Japanese Language Edition, Moby-Dick

Purchased in 2009, During a visit to NYC.

In 1987, working for a multi-national corporation, the editor was due to make a swing thru the far east on a business trip. The trip was aimed at finding suppliers of the product we were selling here in the US. That trip was to start in Taipai and continue to Hong Kong and end in Toyko.

In his mid 30's, he was in the the midst of prolonged funk, asking existential questions and coming up with little to show.  It made sense to turn back and to reexamine things from the past and he choose to reexamine the books from boarding school that he was supposed to read and never did.

As the cab for the airport pulled up to the house he just grabbed his high school copy of Moby-Dick.

he read it on the flight over...

Thus started this obsession.

2012 Penguin English Library Moby-Dick

We ordered this book directly from the UK, from West Sussex to be exact, because, well, to be honest, we love love love the cover.  Its become increasing apparent by comments and traffic to this blog, that, for those who don't care so much for the text, the covers are their jam. 

We have no real desire to touch this book, the cover being so crisp and the binding fresh. But to read a few facts about the publication we had to peek inside. Gingerly, we opened it to ascertain the publication date, peeking in between the pages we were not too surprised to see printed on the bottom of the reverse of the title page that Penguin is committed to a sustainable future for their business, their readers and "our" planet. Phew, that means that no polar bears were harmed in the production of the series. Good for them. And we certainly hope they mean that, but not too strongly, because if you take that position to the extreme, it may make sense, to save the planet, to stop printing books and only provide e books, and that makes us uneasy, queasy really, a bit of spit up just came to our mouths.

Chapter LXXIX  The Praire

Has the Sperm Whale ever written a book, spoken a speech? No, his great genius is declared in his doing nothing particular to prove it. 

So Melville ascertains that the genius of the Sperm Whale is that he needs to do nothing to prove it. "do nothing to prove it."  Just because something can be done, accomplished, manufactured, engineered, or coded; just because some genes can be spliced, some car made with ridiculous amounts of batteries, or books can be published on tablets, that does not in and of itself mean it is genius. Penguin is right to worry about the planet, but we should worry about each other as well.  We don't need to prove to each other how genius we are.

1996 Quality Paperback Book Club MOBY-DICK

1996 Quality Paperback Book Club, Book of the Month Club, Inc. Printed in the United States of America.  This book is pristine, brand new, never read. Perhaps this book was printed at the beginning of the end of the Printing Age. 1996 marks the beginning of the internet boom.

William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister of Great Britain during the last half of the nineteenth century, was a Homer scholar. It was he that first noted that the color blue never appears in Homer's works. He speculated that Homer was color blind.

Using Gladstone's logic we wanted to note if Melville was color blind.  We searched the text and found the following: Yellow is mentioned 21 times, Red is mentioned 38 times, Blue is mentioned 46 times, Black is mentioned 82 times and White is mentioned 208 times. But none of the uses of blue are anything but references to the color and not the meaning: melancholy.

Chapter 135 The Chase 3rd Day

...all the past is somehow grown dim. Mary, girl! thou fadest in pale glories behind me; boy! I seem to see but thy eyes grown wondrous blue. 

Melville, it can be assumed was not color blind by his accurate uses of the words. Homer, however, it is agreed uses color in an odd way. The explanation is not that Homer was color blind but that man has become gradually aware of the colors around over time. And why not? In our own short lives we too become aware of the things in front of us as time goes by. 

2007 Longman Critical Edition MOBY DICK

The MDC has received over the last few months a bevy of new editions, and hence we are a bit behind.

This is the fascinating Longman Critical Edition. Fascinating in that the editors have pieced together a treasure trove.  We hate to use trite sayings like treasure trove, but really this is a fun book.  The text as Melville saw in print in 1851 and on page displays of the revisions made over the years. And Explanatory Notes in the aft add beef to an already beefy product.

The cover art by Geoge Klauba is nothing short of wicked awesome. No, it is wicked awesome, in a Norman Rockwellien style Ahab's boat is screaming heavenly, a jumble of arms and legs with peg leg himself (right legged) leading the way. 

Chapter 53 The Gam

A social meeting of two (or more) Whale-ships, generally on a cruising ground, when, after exchanging hails, they exchange visits by boat's crews

Last week was a big week here at TMDC, it was BP's birthday and as such he held a GAM. Everyone was there: Starbuck, Subb, Flask, Pip, yes the harpooners, and all the rest of the crew.

Is BP Ahab? We are not too sure, we suspect so, but we know who all the other players are, and they may or may not know the roles that have been assigned to them...

MOBY DICK is too much fun!

1969 Dell Publishing Moby Dick

We get very excited when we come upon a used book that is inscribed with the owners name and is underlined. Here is proof of someone's journey with Melville hand in hand. Alas we only see a last name on the inside cover: Highomirk. Perhaps.. a bit illegible. There are pencil underlinings and pen underlining from the first page on, as our intrepid reader moves thru the story. Even there are random notes in the margin, ie "white - all color, no color". And then there it is on page 360 of the 608 pages, a line noting a conversation between Stubb and Flask, it being the last marginality. Here is the point our reader stopped. 

On the Epilogue page is a small blue pen circle about 1/8 of an inch filled in. A doodle not doubt created as he read the page just to get the gist of what he missed in between, a short cut for sure. Could he have been satisfied with that effort?

Chapter CXXXV The Chase Third Day

Oh! my God! what is this that shoots through me, and leaves me so deadly calm, yet expectant, - fixed at the top of a shudder! Future things swim before me, as in empty outlines and skeletons; all the past is somehow grown dim.

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. 

2011 Harper Perennial Classics MOBY-DICK

The 2011 Harper Perennial, worn and read, good for the first owner, name lost, purchased by the Collection from the GOODWILL of Middle Tennessee, landlocked for sure, yet whomever had use of the book, travelled the world thru Melville's pages.

Chapter 99

Stubb soliloquized the signs of the zodiac from Bowditch, the well known and well used almanac we all carried on board our Pequods, small and large:

Virgo, the Virgin! that's our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or the Scales - happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in the rear...

1981 University of California Press - Arion Press Moby Dick

 

Much sought after, the Arion Press Moby Dick, illustrated by Barry Mosher, is a treat. The type face is big and juicy and easy to read, the size of the book is solid, befitting a novel of such weight, and the illustrations are delicate and accessible. 

There are four copies in the collection, a 1981 hardcover, and three soft cover, one unread (6th printing, courtesy of Tim, a fan of this blog), one read (2nd reprinting), and the small sized one, (1st 1983 printing), which we use as a reading copy.

Chapter 87

... under the influence of that strange perplexity of inert irresolution...

Melville has a way of seeing a precise moment of time.

Sitting in amongst the giant pod of whales, which had ceased its commotion, all waited for the next move.  Here is a silent stillness as whales and men pause.

1964 Bobbs-Merrill Company Moby-Dick

Here is the fifth printing of the 1964 Bobbs-Merrill Company edition of Moby-Dick. Already blogged is the 1980 Bobbs-Merrill edition that I purchased at a tent sale accompanied by my friend, LG., one fine day this summer. But I digress.

This early edition lacks cover art, but the internals are identical to the later book. As with all used books, ephemera can sometimes be included, and here stuck in the book is a letter from the Maulding Clinic, apparently a physician and surgeon who lived in NYSSA, OREGON. This letter is his dreaded "Approximately 1000 calories" diet plan. His recipe for Golden Salad dressing calls for 5 drops of orange food color. - eh gads.

Other than Doc Mauldings diet plan, there is no other indication of the former owner, but there are no underlinings and the condition of the spine indicates that the book was never read. We hope that he or she at least stuck to the diet plan, cause you have to believe back in '64 if your doc gave you diet instructions you prob needed to shed a few....

1956 Riverside Edition Paper Back Moby-Dick

One of our favorite previous posts involved the 1956 Riverside Edition of Moby Dick from Houghton Mifflin.

Interestingly, here is a new addition to the collection, which for all intents and purposes is identical to the aforementioned book with the exception of the cover. A cover which is clearly not of the 1950's, yet no where within the book is an indication of the year of printing.

The book is a gift to TMDC from Ford Mclain, a local Albany, NY artist, the featured artist at a local art party recently.

This cover tells us so much more than the original edition:  The Riverside Editions, it is explained on the rear cover, are "a series of classic American, British and continental literature distinguished by its textual purity and authoritative editorial material."

Quoting again from the rear cover: "Moby Dick combines grandeur... friendship, tragedy with the intense anguish of a lonely human soul."  A fitting quote.

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.  

1992 Penguin Classics Definitive Text Moby Dick

Here is a fat paperback, obtained thru the good graces of the Lark Street Bookshop, now defunct.

What should be pointed out is the cover art. It is taken from the Garneray "Peche du Cachalot" located at the Whaling Museum in New Bedford Massachusetts, just a stones throw from TMDC's editor's childhood boarding school, to which he was exiled by his parents where they hoped he would be molded into something other than what he was molded into.

Speaking of High Schools, the cover art is identical to the cover art on the 1980 Signet Classic already blogged about.

Recently, at the store, music playing thru Pandora, we heard Que Sera, Sera by Doris Day. Someone mentioned that every time they heard that song, they thought of the late 80's classic movie Heathers. So being in a melancholy reflective mood and a complete Winona Ryder fan (the shop lifting thing only adds flame to our fire), we Netflixed it and watched it. To our astonishment, Moby-Dick makes a supporting role as Heather Dukes' highschool text of choice, and the edition, 1980 Signet Classic with the Garneray "Peche du Cachalot" on the cover is one of that Heather's prominant accessories.

Great pate, mom, but I gotta motor...

1975 Enriched Classic Pocket Edition Moby Dick

The cover art is almost the only thing that warrants mention about this edition.

Its abridged, and "enriched" by the addition of some supplemental material in the middle of the book.  Some of it is moderately interesting.

But the cover art? A left pegged Ahab  screaming with harpoon in hand.  What is he waiting for? Why is he facing the viewer when Moby Dick clearly is behind him and going down .   I want to scream "turn around you freak!"

The book is abridged and goofy which is not a formula for success.

1975? I was out of college 3 years, working in manufacturing for my father, married and living in our first home.

Nelson Rockefeller was vice president, and if I had the ability to choose how and when and who I could be, I would choose to be Nelson Rockefeller.....

1988 The Northwestern-Newberry Edition MOBY DICK

This is the collection's Northwestern Newberry Edition of Moby Dick.

In Moby Dick circles this is the accepted text for the novel. The editors, Hayford, Parker and Tanselle, aimed at presenting the text as near as Melville's intention as the "evidence permits."

I purchased this book new in 1988, and long before the nugget of The Moby-Dick Collection was found.

Whenever I look at this book I remember 1988 as a watershed year in my life. The year I lay about the pool reading Jude the Obscure, already noted. The year I bought my first business and the unfortunate year of my separation and ultimate divorce from the mother of our children.

Perhaps, in buying this book, I knew I was beginning a quest of sorts myself.

This book reminds me too that 1988 was the year I declared my love to the second of the three great female loves of my life. She left my life in 1991 and I never have spoken or acknowledged her since, except to a very very small number of intimate friends to whom I have detailed her importance in my life.  It is only recently that I have begun to talk openly about my love of her with people who knew her. People who are not intimate friends of mine, but friends non the less.

Such is the journey of peoples lives: complex, wonderful and ever changing. Some call it baggage, I think it is fascinating.

This blog was meant to be a catalogue of books, aimed at highlighting the importance of the printed bound volume in contrast to the temporary fleeting electronic media.  However, I feel that when a book has a personal connection and meaning, I need to divulge that as well. In cataloguing these books as not only objects but objects with meanings and memories the purpose of the blog achieved.

1956 Riverside Edition Paper Back Moby-Dick

Here is the 1956 Riverside edition, measures about 5 by 8.  Having attended highschool in the 1960's I had several classic books printed by the Riverside Press in Boston, listed as Riverside Press Cambridge. 

Notably, I had Jude the Obscure. Never touched it in highschool.  That book I choose to read the summer I got laid off from Norton Company, 1988.   

By the swimming pool at the country club, while I was working on buying the first of several businesses I would buy over the years, I read Jude the Obscure...  Ykes, what was I thinking?  Dark, depressing, wonderful...   I ended that summer with a nice tan.

Anyways I digress, the feel of these books captivated me and I bought anything printed in this series that I ran across in my travels. Currently, in a different section of the library I have a dozen or so titles, alas not Jude the Obscure. I tied up about a half dozen Riverside Press books neatly with hemp string and put that package aside in one of the moves I made after the divorce. Somewhere, somehow that package went missing and I have never seen it or Jude the Obscure since. 

1955 Pocket Library Paperback Moby-Dick

Our first idea for this post was the nice comparison of the cover art between this edition and the previous post.

Essentially, this is the same depiction of a whale destroying the whale boats with the whaling ship in the background, allowing the viewer to know that there is some measure of safety in the trade, despite the obvious dangers.

Yet, upon further review of the 1955 Pocket Library cover, we all agreed that there is a bigger issue here to be illuminated.

The cover price of the book is 35 cents. That lead to a lively discussion of money, wealth, financial security and ultimately things treasured. In 1955 the purchaser turned over, most likely, a quarter and a dime in exchange for this book, would this be the only purchase.

Today if we were to sell it we would accept as fair 35 cents for it. Hence it could be argued that the book held some of its original value over the decades. We all are aware obviously that the 35 cents today is worth a whole lot less than the 35 cents of 1955.

The coins tendered in 1955 would have been silver, and the coins received today would not. That alone would account for a huge different in the intrinsic value of the book, then and now.

Thus this book is illustrative of the importance of safe guarding ones investments. For over time, those investments degrade and lose their value, despite all efforts to the contrary. It is the natural order of the universe: decay with time.

Wether we are concerned with Moby-Dick editions or stocks, bonds, real estate, or silver one must keep an alert eye on ones investments, it is important not to let them lose value because there is no whaling ship out there to rescue you when your investments decay. The 35 cents of 1955 is not the 35 cents of 2011. Each one of us is captain of our own whale boat and solely responsible for those in it with us, trite as that and this post seems.

As this is published we are managing our elderly parents in the last leg of their voyage, and that makes us aware of our voyage and hopefully we manage that for our children, so that there is some treasure of love left for them.

1980 Signet Classic Moby-Dick paperback

Bent corners, warn parts, underlining and check marks, dirty end papers, all the hall mark of a read book.

Here is the 1980 Signet Classic Moby-Dick that is inscribed G. Eric Lilja Mallory house . Actually G. Eric Lilja wrote his name in 3 locations, just to be sure that this book screams "Belongs to me!".

Maybe Mallory House is the same house of that name at Oberlin College. There is a small linkage between Albany NY and Oberlin. Perhaps someday Eric will stumble on the post or some one who knows him, and comment. That would be brilliant! Please do.

Eric underlined and noted in the margins in a very elegant creative and precise hand. The kind of handwriting that TMDC adores.

2008 Webster's Afrikaans Thesaurus Edition

When we first conceived of The Moby-Dick Collection, we envisioned a catalogue of the various printed editions of the masterpiece. It was to be a kind of a stamp collection like endeavor. At the least it was to be a catalogue of each of the known printed editions, with the collection's holdings to be examples of as many books as could be gathered together given the resources.

As many of you seasoned TMDC readers know it quickly turned into more than that, with the edition of foreign language editions. And as this blog progressed, the individual books themselves begin to tell stories, who owned them, where they came from, and so on.

This post is a combination of all of the finest quirks of TMDC.

Here is a recent addition, the 2008 Webster's Afrikaans Thesaurus. As the picture shows, this is the english text of the book with a thesaurus on each page with the Afrikaans words for various english words, presumably this is for the Afrikaan speaking person, who is learning to read English. So one can see that the Afrikaan word for Whale is Walvis. If we are not mistaken there is a Walvis Bay in South Africa.

This book came into our position this year as a birthday gift from my sister, Sarah, to celebrate my 61 st birthday.

Sarah P. D___ is a world traveler for her vocation and avocation. There is not a month that does not go by that she is not off to some far off land. Immediately, Dubai, Manila, Istanbul, and Ireland all come to mind as places Sarah has been in the last year or two.

When she went to Manila,I began silly requests like, "bring me some envelopes" and last year when she was in Vienna, "Hey, how about bringing back some sausages.. you know the little fellas in the can!"

Im not sure Sarah at first appreciated my oblique humor. But she became a bit of a sport.

This year she travelled to South Africa, and it occurred to me to combine my silly requests with The Moby-Dick Collection, so I asked her to pick up an Afrikaans edition of Melville's classic. She had a bit of a layover between safaris and work, and she searched the bookstores but to no avail. However, she did manage to score this edition, which she proudly shipped to me, and it arrived in time for the big birthday doings! Three Cheers to Sage (as we called her in our youth)

Which brings me to this picture: Here is a little something I have kept in the WOPettit archives all these many years, this is Sarah's passport foto from I believe 1966 when she traveled overseas for the first time from our childhood home to Germany. Since that moment she has never really looked back....

Bravo Sarah!

1956 L. W. Singer Company MOBY-DICK

This is one crazy cover. I love the type and it would appear that someone added that little color of red. This is the 1956 printing of the original dated edition of 1942 by the L. W. Singer Company from Syracuse, NY.

At one time it was $1.20 as marked in pencil on the inside cover. When it was for sale at the Bryn Mawr Bookstore it was marked at $.25.