Redburn, the remainder issue of the true first edition

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$ 3 780
Auction dateClassic
15.06.2023 10:00UTC -04:00
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CHRISTIE'S
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USA, New York
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ID 967682
Lot 122 | Redburn, the remainder issue of the true first edition
Redburn, the remainder issue of the true first edition

Herman Melville, 1853

MELVILLE, Herman (1819-1891). Redburn: His First Voyage. London: Richard Bentley, 1853.



The rare remainder issue of the true first edition of Redburn. Richard Bentley's English publication of Redburn preceded the American edition by more than a month. In his article “Collecting Melville,” William Reese notes that “Richard Bentley, Melville's publisher for Redburn (1849), Mardi (1849), White Jacket (1850), and The Whale (1850), refused to have anything to do with his next novel Pierre (it would instead be first published by Harper & Brothers), and in 1853 remaindered all four, binding up the sheets in single volumes in cheap red cloth with cancel titles.” The present copy is one such example, though in black cloth with a red spine label stamped in gilt. Rare at auction: RBH only records the remainder copies in Reese's collection, selling in these rooms in 2022. BAL 13659 (note).



Two volumes in one, octavo (196 x 106mm). Title pages dated 1853 (without the half-title for vol. 2, final leaf of vol. 2 torn and repaired with tape, a few leaves roughly opened at outer margin, a few spots of soiling). Modern black cloth, red leather spine label stamped in gilt (lightly rubbed). Provenance: Philip Gosse, 1810-1888, English naturalist known for his contributions to marine biology (bookplate).

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