On October 18, 1851, the novel was published in London The whale by editor Richard Bentley. It was about Moby Dickthe American author’s masterpiece Herman Melville. The first American edition of Harper and Row would follow on November 14, 1851.
But why was a book by an American author published first in Great Britain and then in the USA? This choice seems to be basically related to the issue of copyright. By the 1840s, American authors had discovered that, if they published their work first in Great Britain, they could benefit from British copyright and, at the same time, if they secured a near-simultaneous American publication, they could avoid the pirated versions. Melville followed this tactic not only for Moby Dick but for his first five novels. In all cases, the American version appeared no later than six weeks after the British one.
The differences between the American and British versions of Moby Dick amount to 600.
However, this choice was not without difficulties. The differences between the two versions of Moby-Dick are significant – amounting to 600 in total. A typical example is the fact that Bentley had not included the play’s epilogue, in which Ishmael – its central narrative figure – recounts how he survived. Generally, the Victorian London publisher had removed anything he deemed obscene or politically problematic without prior agreement with the author.
From the moment he got his hands on the British edition, Melville sought to gain the necessary control over the new version. This effort probably led to the accuracy presented by the American version.
The book initially met with mixed reviews and sold little. At the end of November, for example, the New York International magazine republished a scathing review published a month earlier in the London Spectator. It stated, among other things: “This maritime novel is a unique combination of nautical observation, journal article publication, satirical reflection on the conventions of civilized life […] It repels the reader instead of attracting him.”
The epic follows the three-year journey of the whaling ship “Pequod” from the Atlantic to the Indian and from there to the South Pacific.
Moby Dick tells the tragic story of Captain Ahab, whose half leg was injured by a great white whale. Narrated by the sailor Ishmael, the epic follows the three-year journey of the crew of the whaling ship “Pequod” from the Atlantic to the Indian and from there to the South Pacific Ocean. The ship is believed to be named after the Pequot Native American tribe, while Moby Dick has been interpreted to symbolize God, nature, good, evil – more broadly, power.
A source of inspiration for the author was the true story of the whaling ship “Essex”, which sailed in 1819 and was attacked by a whale, causing it to sink. This whale, “Mocha Dick,” as he was called, was a large and powerful albino male blow whale, which lived off the coast of Chile in the early nineteenth century.
Dedicated to the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, Moby-Dick, despite initial negative reviews, was eventually classified as a classic of American literature.
Column editor: Myrto Katsigera, Vassilis Minakakis, Antigoni-Despina Poimenidou, Athanasios Syroplakis
