Moby Dick or The Whale.

MELVILLE, Herman [Rockwell Kent].

$1,250.00

Item Number: 149584

London: Cassell & Company, Limited, 1930.

First English edition of Rockwell Kent’s famed and masterfully illustrated landmark rendition of the great American novel, widely considered his masterpiece and “best-known contribution to popular American culture” (Wien, 134). Octavo, bound in full crushed levant navy morocco by Bayntun Riviere with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, gilt ruling to the front and rear panel, gilt turn-ins and inner dentelles stamp-signed by Bayntun [Riviere], marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, with 272 illustrations by Rockwell Kent. In fine condition. An exceptional example of this American classic.

Famed American artist Rockwell Kent did more than provide the illustrations for this landmark edition—he designed the entire book, which came to be regarded as "the literary event of 1930" (Stanley 36). “His energy, many-sided activities and preoccupation with integrated book design made him one of the best known American illustrators” (Harthan, 247). Kent's prior experiences as a ship’s carpenter; his explorations of the waters about Tierra del Fuego in a small boat; his sojourns in Newfoundland, Alaska and Greenland— these varied experiences all contributed to Kent’s achievement here, “his best-known contribution to popular American culture. In black and white, he created a universe of emblems and symbols that incorporated elements of both realism and abstraction. Kent observed: Moby Dick is a most solemn, mystic work, with the story and the setting serving merely as the medium for Melville’s profound and poetic philosophy. Each chapter is in itself a poem, and should be presented with all the separate distinction and dignity possible” (Wien, 134).