The pencil addition of "August 1850" would appear to be Melville's recollection of when the "sea-moss" was pasted to this leaf and could have been inscribed by him at any time between August, 1850, and his death in September 1891.

In the Mosses review, Melville describes the volume as being given to him by his cousin "Cherry," but the Aunt Mary referenced here is most likely Mary Anna Augusta Melville, the widow of Melville's Uncle Thomas. The pinholes beneath the inscription indicate that something was pinned to this leaf (NN PTPP 240, 663-664).

In the copies of works he admired, Melville regularly inscribed the authors' birth and death dates, as well as other key dates in their careers.

Melville quoted from the marked passage in the Mosses review (NN PTPP 241).

Melville quoted from the second marked passage in the Mosses review (NN PTPP 241).

Melville quoted from the first marked passage in the Mosses review (NN PTPP 252).

Melville quoted from the second marked passage in the Mosses review (NN PTPP 253).

Melville quoted from the marked passage in the Mosses review (NN PTPP 251).

Melville quoted from the marked passage in the Mosses review (NN PTPP 251).

Melville quoted the marked passage in the Mosses review (NN PTPP 241-242).

Melville quoted the marked passage in his Mosses review (NN PTPP 241-42).

As shown in this image, Melville's inscription includes the following revisions.

Line 2: admirable Piece] admirable P<e>iece

As shown in this image, Melville's annotation in the bottom margin includes the following revisions.

Line 1: This trenches upon] This trenche{s} upon

Melville quoted the second marked passage in the Mosses review (NN PTPP 250).

Melville's notes on this leaf are divided into three sections by his characteristic separators, horizontal lines separated by pairs of vertical slashes.

In the first section, he took note of Hawthorne's allusion to "The School Mistress,"� a poem by William Shenstone (1714-63), in "A Virtuoso's Collection."�

The second section is an early draft of the description of the "fine old farmhouse" in the opening paragraph of the Mosses review (NN PTPP 239).

The third section is notes taken on the pamphlet Masonic Mirror and Symbolic Chart (Sealts No. 351.1)

The second word in line 5 is ambiguous: possible readings, with varying degrees of omission and elision, include "overrunning"� (NN Journals 606), "covering" (Cowen, 1.627) or "circling."

In line 8, Cowen reads "triangle"� for "trough" (1.627).

As shown in this image, Melville's inscription includes the following revisions.

Line 3: Old Locust trees] Old <l> Locust trees
Line 11: hands, keys,] hands, {keys,}
Line 12: {pens, chisels, candlesticks.}
Line 13: —Compass & square] —Compas{s} & square

The first line of this inscription contains notes for the next to last paragraph of the Mosses review (NN PTPP 253).

Melville also makes reference to having read Twice Told Tales in the Mosses review (NN PTPP 249) but confessed in a February 12, 1851 letter to Duyckinck that he "had not read but a few of them before" (NN Correspondence 181).

Beneath these notes for Melville's review "Hawthorne and His Mosses" is a second erased inscription that is partially covered by the Houghton Library label.

The initials "E.M.M." in the bottom right corner are those of Melville's granddaughter Eleanor Melville Metcalf, who donated this volume to Harvard's Houghton Library in 1937.