Melville's Marginalia Online

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Display all Marked and inscribed Inscribed

Spine

Front matter

Front board

Front pastedown (with bookplate and institutional labels)

Upper leaf] erased pencil bookseller markings.
Middle leaf] leather bookplate.
Lower leaf] institutional gift label and microfilm label.

Front free endpaper

Upper right corner] bookseller's erased pencil inscription:
"1⁰⁰".

Front free endpaper verso (inscribed)

Upper leaf] pencil inscription:
"Imported by Putnam for me
$3.38."

Commentary

Front free endpaper verso (inscribed)

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As revealed by his inscription, Melville acquired this copy of Thomas Beale's The Natural History of the Sperm Whale through the Manhattan book store of George Palmer Putnam, at 155 Broadway.

Half-title (autographed)

Upper leaf] ink autograph inscription:
"Herman Melville
New York, July 10^th 1850."

Half-title verso with epigraphs

(rotated image)

According to "Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales" (Chapter 56 of Moby-Dick), Beale's "frontispiece, boats attacking sperm Whales, though no doubt calculated to excite the civil scepticism of some parlor men, is admirably correct and life-like in its general effect" (NN MD 265).

Title (annotated)

Top margin] pencil annotation:
"Turner's pictures of Whalers
were suggested by this book."
Bottom margin] pencil annotation:
"1839".

Commentary

Title (annotated)

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For an examination of possible influences by J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851) on Moby-Dick, see Wallace.

As shown in this image, Melville's inscription includes the following revision:

Line 1: of Whalers] of <aborted letter, likely w>Whalers

Printer's imprint

Upper left corner] institutional pencil inscription:
"*60-482".
Lower leaf] effaced institutional ink inscription:
"599 / 5".

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Epistle (pp. v-vi)

[v]

Bottom margin] effaced institutional ink inscription:
"5[99 / 5]".

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Contents (pp. 8-12)

[8]

Here and on p. 10 of the Table of Contents, Cowen mistakes printer's ink form impressions for marginal scores (Melville's Marginalia 2.175).

Commentary

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Here and on p. 8 of the Table of Contents, Cowen mistakes printer's ink form impressions for marginal scores (Melville's Marginalia 2.175).

12 (inscribed)

Lower leaf] ink inscriptions:
"Cuvier's & Colnet's outlines of the whale
p.14." [014]
"Beale's true outline, with the outline
of the head seen in front p. 22." [023]
"Three whales in various attitudes
p. 33." [033]
"Staving a boat in the air.
p. 173." [173]
"A fighting whale, belly up.
p. 154." [154]

Commentary

12 (inscribed)

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Melville here adds a list of the book's line drawings to Beale's printed list of plates, erroneously locating "Beale's true outline" on page 22 instead of the actual page 23.

Introductory Remarks (pp. 1-22)

[001]

002 (marked)

5-7] erased pencil checkmark.
11-16] erased pencil score (only partially visible in enhanced image).
12-14] erased pencil checkmark.
27-28] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

002 (marked)

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Melville's marking at 5-7 reflects his interest in thematic potential surrounding what Ishmael will describe as the sperm whale's imperfectly known physical form, most fully to be explored in Chapters 55, 56, and 57 of Moby-Dick (NN 260-271; NCE 214-23; LCRE 237-246).

An established writer of South Sea narratives when he began Moby-Dick, Melville at 11-16 scores Beale's remark that connections between the whale fishery and the South Pacific are not well understood. His checkmark at 13 reveals his additional interest in place names associated with northern whaling, evoked for authenticity and effect in "The Decanter," Chapter 101 of Moby-Dick, where Ishmael alludes to the "ancient Greenland and Spitzbergen whale fishery" (NN 446; NCE 343; LCRE 393).

From throughout the paragraph ending at 28, Beale's word-choice and rhetoric are adopted and amplified by Melville in "Cetology," Chapter 32 of Moby-Dick: "[T]he Greenland Whale is an usurper upon the throne of the seas. He is not even by any means the largest of the whales. Yet, owing to the long priority of his claims...all the leviathanic allusions in the great poets of past days, will satisfy you that the Greenland whale, without one rival, was to them the monarch of the seas. But the time has at last come for a new proclamation. This is Charing Cross; hear ye! good people all,—the Greenland whale is deposed—the great sperm whale now reigneth!" (NN 135; NCE 116; LCRE 134).

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003 (marked)

26] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

003 (marked)

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Melville's interest in the published error at 26 was short-lived. In "The Fountain," Chapter 85 of Moby-Dick, Ishmael declares flatly, "the whale has no voice" (NN 372; NCE 291; LCRE 332).

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004 (marked)

7-9] erased pencil checkmark.
17-18] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

004 (marked)

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In marking 7-9, Melville may signal an intention, later abandoned, to include bulls among the many animal species that garnish his allusive discussions of whale physiology and behavior in Moby-Dick. The figurative association would follow naturally from standard whaling parlance, which designated male sperm whales as "bulls" (see Beale 51.9-12). Melville's rhetorical interest in bulls is likewise evidenced in his marginalia at 88.8-11, and on the rear pastedown of his copy of Beale, where Melville records, "1100 lb avg of a bu[ll] ox."

At 17-18, Beale describes legends surrounding not the sperm whale, but the narwhal, as surmised by Òlafsson and Pálsson in Travels in Iceland (113). Melville's second-hand appropriation highlights the power of sailor superstition in "Moby Dick," Chapter 41 of the book, where these rumors pave the way for his account of Ahab's dismemberment: "we find some book naturalists—Olassen and Povelsen—declaring the Sperm Whale not only to be a consternation to every other creature in the sea, but also to be so incredibly ferocious as continually to be athirst for human blood" (NN 181; NCE 153-54; LCRE 174).

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005 (marked)

21-28] erased pencil score (not visible in enhanced image).

Commentary

005 (marked)

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In the paragraph ending at 28, Beale quotes from George Cuvier's Class Mammalia (464). Melville draws from multiple points in Beale's paragraph for a selective rendering in Chapter 41 of Moby-Dick: "[I]n his Natural History, the Baron himself affirms that at sight of the Sperm Whale, all fish (sharks included) are 'struck with the most lively terror,' and 'often in the precipitancy of their flight dash themselves against the rocks with such violence as to cause instantaneous death'" (NN 181; NCE 154; LCRE 174).

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006

007 (marked)

3-6] erased pencil circle.

Commentary

007 (marked)

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Whereas his marking at 3-6 indicates his interest in Beale's report that a sperm whale is unlikely to swallow a man, and incapable of dismembering one, Melville disregards both of these details in his story of the dismembered Captain Ahab, with its manifold allusions to the story of Jonah.

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008 (marked)

4] erased pencil circle (only partially visible in enhanced image).
17-18] erased pencil circle (only partially visible in enhanced image).

Commentary

008 (marked)

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With "Volcano Bay", Melville appropriates the place name "Seychelle" at line 4 for purposes of authenticity and effect in "The Chart," Chapter 44 of Moby-Dick, where Ishmael discusses Ahab's efforts to predict the white whale's movements on the basis of migration charts: "So that though Moby Dick had in a former year been seen, for example, on what is called the Seychelle ground in the Indian ocean, or Volcano Bay on the Japanese Coast; yet it did not follow, that were the Pequod to visit either of those spots at any subsequent corresponding season, she would infallibly encounter him there" (NN 200; NCE 168; LCRE 188-189).

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009 (marked)

30] erased pencil underline.

Commentary

009 (marked)

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Melville alters Beale's syntax at 30 while quoting that passage, along with material from Beale's page 12, in the fourth paragraph of "Cetology," Chapter 32 of Moby-Dick: "'It is not my intention, were it in my power, to enter into the inquiry as to the true method of dividing the cetacea into groups and families. * * * Utter confusion exists among the historians of this animal' (sperm whale), says Surgeon Beale, A. D. 1839" (NN 134; NCE 115; LCRE 133).

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010 (marked)

1] pencil underline.
27-29] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

010 (marked)

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Melville's whimsical use of the paragraph ending at 29, with the illustration on Beale's page 14, appears in "Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales," Chapter 55 of Moby-Dick, describing failed efforts to depict the sperm whale's physical form: "Cuvier's Sperm Whale is not a Sperm Whale, but a squash....[W]hence he derived that picture, who can tell? Perhaps he got it as his scientific predecessor in the same field, Desmarest, got one of his authentic abortions; that is, from a Chinese drawing. And what sort of lively lads with the pencil those Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers inform us" (NN 262-263; NCE 217; LCRE 239).

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011

012 (marked and annotated)

11-13] erased pencil score.
10-13] erased pencil annotation:
"Take quot[ati]on".
14-15] erased pencil checkmark and circle.

Commentary

012 (marked and annotated)

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Melville quotes the passage at 10-13, with material from Beale's pages 9 and 10, in the fourth paragraph of "Cetology," Chapter 32 of Moby-Dick: "'It is not my intention, were it in my power, to enter into the inquiry as to the true method of dividing the cetacea into groups and families. * * * Utter confusion exists among the historians of this animal' (sperm whale), says Surgeon Beale, A. D. 1839" (NN 134; NCE 115; LCRE 133).

Nowhere in Moby-Dick does Melville address the question of multiple sperm whale species, but he takes marked note of Beale's claims of first-hand observation here and elsewhere in The Natural History of the Sperm Whale (see pages 72 and 113).

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013 (marked)

4-6] erased pencil circle.

Commentary

013 (marked)

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Alert for for what he calls "fish-documents" in Moby-Dick (NN 443), Melville at 4-6 marks the title and date of Cuvier's eminent Natural History of Whales. Material beneath the marked passage forms the basis for Ishmael's remark in Chapter 55 of Moby-Dick that most "scientific drawings have been taken from the stranded fish; and these are about as correct as a drawing of a wrecked ship, with broken back, would correctly represent the noble animal itself in all its undashed pride of hull and spars. Though elephants have stood for their full-lengths, the living Leviathan has never yet fairly floated himself for his portrait" (NN 263; NCE 217; LCRE 239).

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014

Commentary

014

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Melville added this illustration to Beale's printed list of plates on page 012 of the book's front matter.

015 (marked)

22-26] erased pencil wavy score.
22-26] erased pencil circle.

Commentary

015 (marked)

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Contrary to Beale's assertion at 22-26, Scoresby claims never to have seen a Greenland whale that "exceeded 60 feet in length," and that the largest ever measured was "67 feet" (452). In drawing from the passage, Melville observed Scoresby's minimal measurement for the Greenland whale and augmented Beale's size for the sperm whale, alluding in Chapter 103 of Moby-Dick to "Captain Scoresby's estimate, of seventy tons for the largest sized Greenland whale of sixty feet in length" and to "a Sperm Whale of the largest magnitude, between eighty-five and ninety feet in length, and something less than forty feet in its fullest circumference" (NN 452; NCE 347; LCRE 398).

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Unmarked pages 16-17

016

017

018 (marked)

4-8] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

018 (marked)

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In connection with the marked content at 5-6, Melville lists Robert Hamilton's The Natural History of the Ordinary Cetacea or Whales (Edinburgh : W.H. Lizars, 1837), Vol. 6 of the Naturalist's Library coordinated by Sir William Jardine among his notes on the rear free endpaper of his copy of The Natural History of the Sperm Whale.

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019

020 (marked)

16-22] erased pencil score (not visible in enhanced image).
24-26] erased pencil circle (only partially visible in enhanced image).

Commentary

020 (marked)

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Melville's interest in the passage at 16-22 forecasts Chapter 88 of Moby-Dick, "Schools & Schoolmasters," where he will draw heavily from Beale's Chapter VI, "Herding, and Other Particulars, of the Sperm Whale" (51-54).

Melville makes no use in Moby-Dick of the false observation at 24-26 disseminated by Baron George Cuvier in The Class Mammalia.

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021 (marked)

9-10] erased pencil arced score.
9-10] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

021 (marked)

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Beale's remark at 9-10 alludes to the prevalence of misinformation cited throughout the foregoing "Introductory Remarks" chapter of Natural History of the Sperm Whale. Whereas no phrasal parallel exists to document his explicit use of the passage in his whaling narrative, Melville's interest in the remark forecasts the penumbra of superstition and myth with which he will invest the subject of sperm whales throughout the narrative of Moby-Dick.

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022

Ch. I. Form and Peculiarities of the Sperm Whale (pp. 23-32)

023

Commentary

023

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Melville added this illustration to Beale's printed list of plates on page 012 of the book's front matter.

024 (marked)

23-24] erased pencil checkmark.
Lines from sperm whale illustrations on the recto (page 23) are visible at 24.15-18 and 24.25-29.

Commentary

024 (marked)

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Melville's augmentative rendering of the passage at 23-24 appears in "The Tail," Chapter 86 of Moby-Dick: "At its utmost expansion in the full grown whale, the tail will considerably exceed twenty feet across" (NN 375; NCE 293; LCRE 335).

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Unmarked pages 25-26

025

026

027 (marked)

14-22] erased pencil wavy score.
17-19] erased horizontal pencil lines (perhaps underlines disrupted during inscription) overwriting printed text.

Commentary

027 (marked)

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Melville's augmentative rendering of information at 14-22 and of similar measurements on page 15 of Natural History occur in "Measurement of the Whale's Skeleton," Chapter 103 of Moby-Dick, where Ishmael describes "a Sperm Whale of the largest magnitude, between eighty-five and ninety feet in length, and something less than forty feet in its fullest circumference" (NN 452; NCE 347; LCRE 398).

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028 (marked)

24-29] erased pencil circle.

Commentary

028 (marked)

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In a footnote to his description of a whale going "head out" (in Chapter 61 of Moby-Dick, "Stubb kills a Whale," and borrowed from 45.26-27), Melville transforms Beale's nautical comparison at 24-29 into a compound simile: "such is the breadth of the upper part of the front of [the sperm whale's] head, and such the tapering cut-water formation of the lower part, that by obliquely elevating his head, he thereby may be said to transform himself from a bluff-bowed sluggish galliot into a sharp-pointed New York pilot-boat" (NCE 231; LCRE 255).

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029 (marked)

2-6] erased pencil wavy score.
9-11] erased pencil circle.

Commentary

029 (marked)

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As indicated in "Cetology," Chapter 32 of Moby-Dick, Melville may here intend to address the anatomy and behavior of the Greenland or Right whale "with reference to elucidating the sperm whale" (NN 139; NCE 119; LCRE 137); but his marking at 2-6 seems not to have had an impact on his detailed descriptions of the Right Whale in Chapters 73 and 75.

Melville's interest in the Greenland whale's inferiority of acceleration accords with his practice in manuscript of lobbying for the sperm whale's physical supremacy; but nowhere in Moby-Dick does Melville adopt the present comparison marked at 9-11.

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030 (marked)

3-7] erased pencil circle.

Commentary

030 (marked)

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Melville's marking at 3-7 informs "The Sperm Whale's Head," Chapter 74 of Moby-Dick, which contrasts the sperm whale's with the right whale's head, distinguishing their ears thus: "With respect to their ears, this important difference is to be observed between the sperm whale and the right. While the ear of the former has an external opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered over with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from without" (NN 331; NCE 263; LCRE 298-299). See also 115.12-13.

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031 (marked)

9-11] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

031 (marked)

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This reference to the skin's curious linear impressions at 9-11 furnished Melville with the basis for its implications of occult signification and ancient symbolism in Chapter 68 of Moby-Dick: "In some instances, to the quick, observant eye, those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but afford the ground for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in the present connexion" (NN 306; NCE 246; LCRE 277).

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032 (marked)

1-3] erased pencil circle.

Commentary

032 (marked)

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Melville's augmentative rendering of marked content at 1-3 appears in "The Blanket," Chapter 68 of Moby-Dick: "That blubber is something of the consistence of firm, close-grained beef, but tougher, more elastic and compact, and ranges from eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness" (NN 305 ; NCE 245; LCRE 276). See 88.8-11, where Melville marks a passage comparing the flesh of the sperm whale to that of the bull.

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Ch. II. Habits of the Sperm Whale (pp. 33-38)

033 (marked and annotated)

3] pencil x.
10-17] erased pencil score.
Bottom margin] pencil x and annotation:
"There is some sort of mistake in
the drawing of Fig: 2. The tail part
is wretchedly crippled & dwarfed, &
looks altogether unnatural. The head is good."

Commentary

033 (marked and annotated)

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Melville added this illustration to Beale's printed list of plates on page 012 of the book's front matter.

Although he would import the first eight lines of this paragraph into the opening "Extracts" section of Moby-Dick, Melville did not go on to use the passage he marked at 10-17. In asserting empirical authority while disclaiming complete accuracy, Beale here assumes a rhetorical stance not unlike forms Melville would himself adopt in "Cetology" (Chapter 32) and elsewhere in Moby-Dick.

Melville's marking and annotation correspond to remarks made in Chapter 56 of Moby-Dick, when Ishmael observes, "All Beale's drawings of this whale are good, excepting the middle figure in the picture of three whales in various attitudes, capping his second chapter" (NN 265; NCE 219; LCRE 241).

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Unmarked pages 34-35

034

035

036 (marked)

10-12] erased pencil circle.
28-30] erased pencil circle.

Commentary

036 (marked)

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The blind whale described here provided Melville with inspiration for Chapter 81 of Moby-Dick, "The Pequod Meets the Virgin," as first observed by Vincent (1949). There Melville uses the passage at 10-12 as the basis for one of several epic similes that punctuate its episode of chase and capture: "As strange misgrown masses gather in the knot-holes of the noblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points which the whale's eyes had once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly pitiable to see" (NN 357; NCE 282; LCRE 321). See also 181.26-31.

Melville's marking of the paragraph ending at 30 influenced "Chapter 36: The Quarter-Deck," where Starbuck alludes to the "crooked jaw" of Moby Dick, and "Chapter 133: The Chase-First Day," where Ishmael refers to "Moby Dick's open mouth and scrolled jaw" (NN 163; NCE 139, NN 549; NCE 409-410; LCRE 480-481).

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037 (marked)

1-17] erased pencil wavy score.

Commentary

037 (marked)

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Melville's long marginal score at 1-18 indicates considerable interest in the lower-jaw deformity of bull sperm whales. Along with giving the white whale a "crooked jaw" (NN 163; NCE 139; LCRE 158), Melville in Chapter 88 reports: "They fence with their long lower jaws, sometimes locking them together, and so striving for the supremacy like elks that warringly interweave their antlers. Not a few are captured having the deep scars of these encounters,—furrowed heads, broken teeth, scolloped fins; and in some instances, wrenched and dislocated mouths" (NN 392; NCE 306; LCRE 349).

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038

Ch. III. Swimming (pp. 39-40)

039 (marked)

9] erased pencil circle.
16] erased pencil circle.

Commentary

039 (marked)

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As with his interest in the expression "white water" below, Melville at 9 marks Beale's use of the term for the two halves of the whale's tail. The circle would seem to be Melville's mark of choice for tagging whaling vocabulary for use in Moby-Dick, where along with its use in the cetological chapters the term "flukes" appears figuratively, as in Peter Coffin's words to Ishmael in Chapter 3: "But come, it's getting dreadful late, you had better be turning flukes—it's a nice bed" (NN 19; NCE 32; LCRE 36).

In Moby-Dick, Melville makes no connection between a whale's rate of speed and the "white water" accompanying its motion, as marked at 16. But the expression recurs in both the narration and the dialogue of Moby-Dick, most prominently in Chapter 48, "The First Lowering" (NN 222, 223; NCE 185, 186; LCRE 206, 207).

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040

Ch. IV. Breathing (pp. 41-45)

041 (marked)

23-25] erased pencil circle (only partially visible in enhanced image).

Commentary

041 (marked)

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Here at 23-25 and elsewhere in his copy of Natural History, Melville takes note of the sperm whale's physical dimensions, and its regularity of breathing and motion. Whereas he relied heavily on the present chapter for his own treatment of the whale's breathing in Moby-Dick (see Vincent 289-91), he seems not to have drawn from this particular passage.

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042 (marked)

3-8] erased pencil score.
8] erased pencil checkmark.
14] erased pencil checkmark.
18] erased pencil checkmark.
26-31] erased pencil score.
27] erased pencil underline.
29] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

042 (marked)

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In deliberate obfuscation of Beale's straightforward description at 3-8, Melville devised Chapter 85 of Moby-Dick, "The Fountain," which is organized around the purported mystery of the spout's composition: "that down to this blessed minute...it should still remain a problem, whether these spoutings are, after all, really water, or nothing but vapor—this is surely a noteworthy thing" (NN 370; NN 290; LCRE 331). The approach would seem also to be derived from Beale's complaint (unmarked at 16.12-14) that "from Pliny's down to the present time, the notion has existed that he constantly ejects water with his breath."

Melville’s marking at 14 appears in Moby-Dick as whale spouts are seen "about two miles off" in Chapter 47 (NN 216; NCE 180; LCRE 201), and "at a distance of some two or three miles" in Chapter 87 (NN 382; NCE 298; LCRE 341).

In Chapter 85 Ishmael explains that the sperm whale "breathes through his spiracle alone; and this is on the top of his head" (NN 370; NCE 290; LCRE 331), a passage influenced by Melville’s marking at 18.

In coordination with his debt to 43.1-8 below, Melville relied on the passage at 26-31 to describe the regularity of sperm whale respiration in Chapter 85: "If unmolested, upon rising to the surface, the Sperm Whale will continue there for a period of time exactly uniform with all his other unmolested risings" (NN 371; NCE 291; LCRE 332). In checkmarking "'depths of the ocean buried'" at 29, Melville reveals his vested interest in the literary potential of whaling and whalecraft. Beale's source for the expression is unidentified.

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043 (marked)

1-8] erased pencil wavy score.
18-21] erased pencil circle.
19] partially erased pencil underline.
25-27] erased pencil score.

Commentary

043 (marked)

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The first line of the passage at 1-8 appears rephrased in Melville's discussion of the sperm whale's regularity of breathing in Chapter 85: "Remark, however, that in different individuals these rates are different; but in any one they are alike" (NN 371; NCE 291; LCRE 332). There Beale's "to a minute" emerges in Melville's "Say he stays eleven minutes, and jets seventy times...then whenever he rises again, he will be sure to have his seventy breaths over again, to a minute" (NN 371; NCE 291; LCRE 332).

Though at 19 applying his marginal circle to the sound made by finbacks and other non-sperm whale species in inspiration, Melville would not go on to use the term in his narrative of the sperm whale fishery.

As indicated in the comment on 43.1-8 above, Melville relied on the passage at 25-27 for the following report in Chapter 85: "Say he stays eleven minutes, and jets seventy times, that is, respires seventy breaths; then whenever he rises again, he will be sure to have his seventy breaths over again, to a minute" (NN 371; NCE 291; LCRE 332). As was quite typical in his appropriations of numeric data from Beale, Melville here adopts the higher of the two breath-minute ratios offered by his source.

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044 (marked)

8] erased pencil checkmark.
9-11] erased pencil fist.
12-15] erased pencil arced score.
24] erased pencil underline.
24-30] erased pencil score.
24-30] erased pencil fist.

Commentary

044 (marked)

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Melville's poetic rendering of the passage at 8 appears in Chapter 86 of Moby-Dick: "Excepting the sublime breach...this peaking of the whale's flukes is perhaps the grandest sight to be seen in all animated nature. Out of the bottomless profundities the gigantic tail seems spasmodically snatching at the highest heaven. So in dreams, have I seen majestic Satan thrusting forth his tormented colossal claw from the flame Baltic of Hell" (NN 378; NCE 295; LCRE 337). See also the sighting of Moby Dick in Chapter 133, where "for an instant his whole marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia's Natural Bridge, and warningly waving his bannered flukes in the air, the grand god revealed himself, sounded, and went out of sight" (NN 549; NCE 409; LCRE 480).

Chapter 85 of Moby-Dick alludes to the whale's period beneath the ocean surface as a "full hour and more" (NN 370; NCE 290; LCRE 331). When the white whale itself sounds in Chapter 133, Ahab predicts the wait of an "hour" (NN 549; NCE 409; LCRE 480). While it seems to point directly at line 11, the pencil fist may mark the whole upper half of page 44. "There go flukes!" is exclaimed in Chapters 47 and 61 (NN 215, 283; NCE 180, 231; LCRE 201, 255).

Herding females are discussed at length in "Schools and Schoolmasters" and "The Grand Armada," Chapters 87 and 88 of Moby-Dick. But nowhere does Melville address the subject of female breathing patterns as seen at 24-30. Melville did draw from the sentence above this scored passage at 21-23 to declare in Chapter 85 that "the Sperm Whale only breathes about one seventh or Sunday of his time" (NN 371; NCE 291; LCRE 332).

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045 (marked and annotated)

5-8] erased pencil wavy score.
17-24] erased pencil wavy score and x.
17-18] erased pencil circle.
26-27] erased pencil circle (not visible in enhanced image).
Bottom margin] pencil x and annotation:
"White & green vortex in the blue—as
when a ship sinks."

Commentary

045 (marked and annotated)

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Whereas here at 5-8 he took note of detailed information about the proportion of breathing rates to physiological qualities, Melville did not include such minute particulars in the text of Moby-Dick.

Melville’s marginal score at 17-24 is evident in Chapter 73 of Moby-Dick, wherein a harpooned right whale descends by "suddenly going down in a maelstrom" (NN 324; NCE 258; LCRE 292), and in the scene of Ahab's dismemberment (Chapter 41) we read of "oars and men both whirling in the eddies" (NN 184; NCE 156; LCRE 176). In "The Chase-Second Day" (Chapter 134), Moby Dick descends, after destroying two whaleboats, "in a boiling maelstrom, in which, for a space, the odorous cedar chips of the wrecks danced round and round, like the grated nutmeg in a swiftly stirred bowl of punch" (NN 559; NCE 416; LCRE 488). As noted by Leonard (1979), the vortex image carries Descartian associations in Moby-Dick, suggesting a mechanized universe devoid of spiritual progress.

Melville's marginal circle at 26-27 marks the whaling expression "going head out," which he would go on to use in Chapters 61 (with quotation marks) and 81 (without) of Moby-Dick (NN 284, 354; NCE 231, 279; LCRE 255, 318). Both instances occur in dramatic renderings of the whale's action of elevating its head above the water while attempting to flee the whaleboats.

The unerased annotation in the bottom margin seems derived in part from Beale's Chapter XIII, where a descending whale is said to leave "nothing but a white-and-green-looking vortex in the disturbed blue ocean" (180-81). Also appearing in his rough sketch for the fate of the Pequod (see Beale's page 184), Melville's connection of the vortex (here mis-written as "voxtex") with a sinking ship forecasts the conclusion of Moby-Dick. For his marginal allusion to Ixion, whom he would go on to link with the vortex image in the book's epilogue, see 54.

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Ch. V. Actions of the Sperm Whale (pp. 46-50)

046 (marked)

17] erased pencil underline.
17-20] erased pencil circle.

Commentary

046 (marked)

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Melville makes use of marked content at 17-19 in "The Tail," Chapter 86 of Moby-Dick, where the sperm whale's heightened sense of touch is said to be "chiefly evinced in the action of sweeping, when in maidenly gentleness the whale with a certain soft slowness moves his immense flukes from side to side upon the surface of the sea; and if he feel but a sailor's whisker, woe to that sailor, whiskers and all" (NN 378, NCE 295; LCRE 336). In Chapter 134, the white whale is described as "slowly feeling with his flukes from side to side; and whenever a stray oar, bit of plank, the least chip or crumb of the boats touched his skin, his tail swiftly drew back, and came sideways smiting the sea" (NN 559; NCE 417; LCRE 488).

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047 (marked)

6-8] erased pencil circle.

Commentary

047 (marked)

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After destroying two whaleboats and capsizing another in Chapter 133 of Moby-Dick, the white whale is described as "vertically thrusting his oblong white head up and down in the billows; and at the same time slowly revolving his whole spindled body" (NN 550, NCE 410; LCRE 481). Along with poetically comparing the whale's perpendicular posture at 6-8 with the Eddystone lighthouse, Melville returns to Beale's explanation in a footnote: "By this motion the whale must best and most comprehensively view whatever objects may be encircling him" (NN 551; NCE 411; LCRE 482).

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048 (marked and annotated)

13-18] erased pencil circle.
19-23] erased pencil x.
Bottom margin] erased pencil x and annotation:
"It may also be [it is] [?the whale's] act of
defiance, as a h[orse sha]king his mane,—
for the waves then seem like the mane
of the monster."

Commentary

048 (marked and annotated)

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Although he would describe the act of breaching with extraordinary effect in the battles with Moby Dick (NN 557, 566-567; NCE 415, 422; LCRE 487, 495), Melville never alludes in his narrative to sequential breaching. Melville's augmentative rendering of the sentence immediately following lines 13-18 appears in "The Chase-Second Day" (Chapter 134 of Moby-Dick), where by breaching the sperm whale "shows his place to the distance of seven miles and more" (NN 557; NCE 415; LCRE 487).

The creative outcome of the annotation in the bottom margin is apparent in Chapter 134 of Moby-Dick, where after describing the white whale's breach Melville observes of the phenomenon: "In those moments, the torn, enraged waves he shakes off, seem his mane; in some cases, this breaching is his act of defiance" (NN 557; NCE 415; LCRE 487).

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049 (marked and annotated)

Upper right of top margin] erased pencil annotation:
"T[hresher] here".
2] two erased pencil circles.

Commentary

049 (marked and annotated)

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Alert to the sea's displays of violence and conflict among its creatures in his reading of Beale, Melville at 2 takes heightened interest in a report he would in fact not appropriate for use in Moby-Dick. The passage may be indirectly connected to the account of a swordfish's impalement of the whaleship Town-Ho in Chapter 54.

The erased annotation at upper right identifies Beale's discussion of the thresher shark, which, extending from page 49 to 50, involves content on both the recto and verso of the present leaf. To designate both pages, Melville folded the upper-right corner of page 49 onto 50 and wrote on the dog-eared triangular fold, "Thresher here." In Chapter 32 of Moby-Dick Melville incorrectly identifes the "Thrasher" as a whale, altering Beale's spelling to play up the meataphor of a school room disciplinarian: "This gentleman is famous for his tail, which he uses for a ferule in thrashing his foes. He mounts the Folio whale's back, and as he swims, he works his passage by flogging him; as some schoolmasters get along in the world by a similar process (NN 123; NCE 123; LCRE 140).

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050 (annotated)

Upper right corner of recto] erased pencil annotation:
"T[hresher] here".

Ch. VI. Herding of the Sperm Whale (pp. 51-54)

051 (marked and annotated)

9-12] erased pencil x and circle (only partially visible in enhanced image).
12] erased pencil underline.
Bottom margin] erased pencil x and annotation:
"The [—?—] [—?—] what Vidocq in his 'Memoirs'
calls w[andering friar]s".

Commentary

051 (marked and annotated)

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In marking content at 9-12 and underlining its key term at 12, Melville may have had in mind his idea for what became Chapter 88 of Moby-Dick, "Schools and Schoolmasters."

Melville in the bottom margin alludes to The Memoirs of Vidocq (1828), where in disguise as a wandering friar the fugitive title-character finds work as a schoolmaster in a rural parish but is driven out for seducing his female students. In Chapter 88 of Moby-Dick Ishmael observes: "some have surmised that the man who first thus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale, must have read the memoirs of Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a country-schoolmaster that famous Frenchman was in his younger days, and what was the nature of those occult lessons he inculcated into some of his pupils" (NN 393; NCE 307; LCRE 350).

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Commentary

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The conjectural reading "w[andering friar]s" is here based in part on the episode in Memoirs of Vidocq to which Melville alludes, where in disguise as a wandering friar the fugitive title-character finds work as a schoolmaster in a rural parish. For the edition likely consulted by Melville, see Memoirs of Vidocq . . . In Four Volumes (London: Whittaker, Treacher, and Arnot, 1829-30), in particular vol. 1, 183-184.

052

053 (marked)

6-9] erased pencil circle.

Commentary

053 (marked)

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Melville drew from the passage at 6-9 and from material in the next paragraph for the conclusion of Chapter 88 of Moby-Dick: "Another point of difference between the male and female schools is still more characteristic of the sexes. Say you strike a Forty-barrel-bull—poor devil! all his comrades quit him. But strike a member of the harem school, and her companions swim around her with every token of concern, sometimes lingering so near her and so long, as themselves to fall a prey" (NN 393-394; NCE 307; LCRE 351).

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054 (marked and annotated)

7-9] erased pencil x.
14-16] erased pencil checkmark.
Bottom margin] erased pencil annotation:
"until they attain their [—?—] [—?—] like old
Ixion's [—?—] & his sins & punishment."

Commentary

054 (marked and annotated)

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In appropriating the passage at 7-9 for Chapter 88 of Moby-Dick, Melville alters the motive for separation in order to further develop the chapter's treatment of sexually motivated behavior: "They soon relinquish this turbulence though, and when about three fourths grown, break up, and separately go about in quest of settlements, that is, harems" (NN 393; NCE 307; LCRE 351). Melville's transformation of the passage is forecast by his annotation in the bottom margin, which moves in turn from the subject of sexual instincts to violent confrontation. The mortal king Ixion of Greek mythology was condemned by Zeus to revolve on a wheel of fire in Hades for his attempt to seduce Hera, the queen of the gods. The annotation seems intended for Chapter 88 of Moby-Dick, where Melville describes the conflicts between young male sperm whales and the established bulls in elaborate detail. But Melville would instead use the figure of Ixion for the epilogue of Moby-Dick, where Ishmael's resemblance to the classical transgressor fulfills the book's running theme of cosmic punishment.

In the paragraph ending at 16, Melville takes interest in the sperm whale's unexplained practice of communicating among themselves. The information does not appear in the text of Moby-Dick.

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Ch. VII. Nature of the Sperm Whale's Food (pp. 55-69)

Unmarked pages 55-58

19-20] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

059 (marked)

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In checkmarking 19-20 Melville displays characteristic interest in odd and extraordinary marine phenomena—presumably for its literary potential—but he would not go on to use the present material in Moby-Dick.

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060 (marked and annotated)

Top margin] erased pencil circled x and annotation:
"The p[aper-nautiluses] [—?—] like so
many s[two or three words]".
3-5] erased pencil x (not visible in enhanced image).
15-30] erased pencil wavy score (continued at 61.1-3, only partially visible in enhanced image).
25-28] erased pencil circled x (not visible in enhanced image).
Bottom margin] erased pencil x and annotation:
"[two or three words] as many anchors as
Sinbad's ship did in the gale."

Commentary

060 (marked and annotated)

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In this heavily erased annotation in the top margin, the recovered expression "like so many" indicates a poetic connection between the paper-nautiluses and a now-lost object of comparison.

Scored in its entirety, Beale's description of the paper-nautilus at 15-30 (and 1-4 of page 61) would seem to have fascinated Melville, who annotated its nautical qualities and went on to employ the image when describing the Pequod's whaleboats as they approach the white whale in "The Chase—First Day," Chapter 133 of Moby-Dick: "Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea" (NN 548 ; NCE 408; LCRE 479).

The annotation in the bottom margin alludes to the fourth voyage of Sinbad, where in some editions of The Arabian Nights the merchant adventurer attempts to weather a storm at sea by casting his ship's supply of anchors. Melville did not go on to use the comparison in Moby-Dick.

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061 (marked)

1-3] erased pencil score (continues 60.15-30).
18-20] erased pencil circle.
24-25] erased pencil underlines and circle.

Commentary

061 (marked)

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Beale's association of the spawn with barley at 18-20 would seem to have prompted Melville's conception of "Brit," Chapter 58 of Moby-Dick: "For leagues and leagues it undulated round us, so that we seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and golden wheat" (NN 272; NCE 223; LCRE 247). The chapter's pastoral imagery informs its controlling symbolic associations of serenity with the land and savagery with the sea—with parallel contrasts in the human psyche: "For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life" (NN 274; NCE 225; LCRE 248). See also Melville's annotation, "Barley Banks," at 189.4-5.

Melville describes the "'Brazil Banks'", underlined at 24-25, in a footnote to Chapter 58, alluding to the "remarkable meadow-like appearance, caused by the vast drifts of brit continually floating in those latitudes, where the Right Whale is often chased." Melville himself had seen the banks in 1841 and 1844. The footnote follows an epic simile apparently inspired in some part by Beale's discussion: "As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly advance their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads; even so these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound; and leaving behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea" (NN 272; NCE 223; LCRE 247).

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062

063 (marked)

23-25] erased pencil circle.

Commentary

063 (marked)

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Melville alludes to "Banks and Solander, Cooke's naturalists," in Chapter 105 of Moby-Dick, but in discussing the size of whales, not cephalopods or squid as in the passage he marked here at 23-25 (NN 460; NCE 352; LCRE 403-404).

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064 (marked and annotated)

5-24] erased pencil score.
10-13] erased pencil annotation:
"Squid".

Commentary

064 (marked and annotated)

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Melville's marginalia at 10-13 signal an interest that would develop into Chapter 59 of Moby-Dick, entitled "Squid," which includes Melville's augmentative reference to dismembered tentacles "exceeding twenty and thirty feet in length" (NN 277; NCE 226; LCRE 250). His qualification of Schewediawer's classification of the giant squid as a cuttle-fish appears as the final paragraph of Chapter 59: "By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumors of the mysterious creature, here spoken of, it is included among the class of cuttle-fish, to which, indeed, in certain external respects it would seem to belong, but only as the Anak of the tribe" (NN 277; NCE 227; LCRE 250).

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065 (marked and annotated)

10-29] erased pencil wavy score (only partially visible in enhanced image).
14-15] erased pencil x (not visible in enhanced image).
Bottom margin] erased pencil x and annotation:
"Squid a [—?—]ing fish."

Commentary

065 (marked and annotated)

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As indicated by his long marginal score at 10-29, Melville was apparently interested in the rumored ferocity of onychoteuthis squid, as further suggested by his erased annotation. He may have been struck as well by the clash of associations in its being dreaded by bathers even while eagerly relished as a food source. Moby-Dick contains no such episode as the Sardinian captain's experience.

Judging from the passage referenced at 14-15, the undeciphered word in this annotation in the bottom margin may connote "terrifying" or "horrifying." Whereas Melville would not go on to include this average species of squid in the story of Moby-Dick, Starbuck reacts with cold dread to the crew's sighting of a giant squid in Chapter 59 (NN 275; NCE 226; LCRE 250).

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066 (marked and annotated)

1-3] erased pencil circle.
18-21] erased pencil annotation:
"[—?—]ing [—?—]."

Commentary

066 (marked and annotated)

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Melville's marking of this reference to the "'flying squid'" at 1-3 reveals his characteristic interest in the odd and extraordinary among marine life.

In Chapter 59 of Moby-Dick, squid are said to "furnish to the sperm whale his only food" (NN 276; NCE 226; LCRE 250). Along with 64.5-13, Beale's reference to the dismembered tentacles informs Melville's comment at 18-21 that "when closely pursued, [the sperm whale] will disgorge what are supposed to be the detached arms of the squid; some of them thus exhibited exceeding twenty and thirty feet in length" (NN 277; NCE 226; LCRE 250). Influence of the passage can also be seen in Chapter 61 of Moby-Dick, with Queequeg's informed sense of expectation following the Pequod's encounter with a giant squid: "When you see him 'quid," said the savage, honing his harpoon in the bow of his hoisted boat, "then you quick see him 'parm whale" (NN 282; NCE 230; LCRE 254).

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067 (marked)

9-29] erased pencil wavy score.

Commentary

067 (marked)

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As with his marginalia to 65.10-29, Melville at 9-29 seems to have taken interest in the rumored ferocity of some species of squid, and may at some point have considered a fuller account of this animal than the brief treatment he finally published in Chapter 59 of Moby-Dick.

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068 (marked)

1-25] partially erased pencil broken score.

Commentary

068 (marked)

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As with his marginalia to 65.10-29, Melville at 1-25 seems to have taken interest in the rumored ferocity of some species of squid, and may at some point have considered a fuller account of this animal than the brief treatment he finally published in Chapter 59 of Moby-Dick.

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069

Ch. VIII. Anatomy and Physiology of the Sperm Whale (pp. 70-126)

070 (marked)

8-10] erased pencil checkmark.
9] erased pencil underline.

Commentary

070 (marked)

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John Hunter (1728-1793) published "The Anatomy of Whales" in The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1787. Melville's marking at 9 forecasts his reference to "the great Hunter" in Chapter 55 of Moby-Dick (NN 263; NCE 218; LCRE 240), in connection with material appropriated from Beale's page 73.

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071

072 (marked and annotated)

Top margin] erased pencil fist and annotation:
"This [—?—] the auth[—?—]y of Beale".
1-5] erased pencil checkmark and circle.
21-22] erased pencil circle.
26-28] erased pencil circle.

Commentary

072 (marked and annotated)

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The length of the fourth word in this erased annotation in the top margin makes "authenticity" the most probable reading, though "authority" is a second possibility. Melville employs both terms while alluding to cetological sources in Moby-Dick.

On the basis of the passage at 1-5 Melville creates an alternative benefactor for Ishmael in "A Bower of the Arsacides," Chapter 102 of Moby-Dick: "And as for my exact knowledge of the bones of the leviathan in their gigantic, full grown development, for that rare knowledge I am indebted to my late royal friend Tranquo, king of Tranque, one of the Arsacides" (NN 449; NCE 344; LCRE 395). Near the end of the chapter Melville alludes directly to Constable while paving the way for augmentative renderings of Beale's measurements: "at a place in Yorkshire, England, Burton Constable by name, a certain Sir Clifford Constable has in his possession the skeleton of a Sperm Whale, but of moderate size, by no means of the full-grown magnitude of my friend King Tranquo's" (NN 451; NCE 346; LCRE 397).

In "Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales," Chapter 55 of Moby-Dick, Ishmael observes, "it is one of the more curious things about this Leviathan, that his skeleton gives very little idea of his general shape" (NN 263; NCE 218; LCRE 239). Melville's appropriation of the passage at 21-22 contributes to the aura of mystery surrounding the physical appearance of the sperm whale, a motif contributing in turn to its symbolic deification in Moby-Dick.

The influence of information marked at 26-28 is also evident in Chapter 55 of Moby-Dick wherein Ishmael observes that the whale's fin bones are "permanently lodged in their fleshy covering" (NN 263; NCE 218; LCRE 240). See 74.21-28 below for Melville's detailed rendering.

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073 (marked)

3-4] pencil circle.

Commentary

073 (marked)

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The influence of information marked at 3-4 is apparent in "Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales," Chapter 55 of Moby-Dick, where Ishmael states, ""the mere skeleton of the whale bears the same relation to the fully invested and padded animal as the insect does to the chrysalis that so roundingly envelopes it" (NN 263; NCE 218; LCRE 240).

074 (marked and annotated)

22] erased pencil circle and x (only partially visible in enhanced image).
Bottom margin] erased pencil annotation of five to seven words.

Commentary

074 (marked and annotated)

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With 72.27-29 above, the passage at 22 informs Melville's account of the unreliable physical impression supplied by the whale's skeleton in Chapter 55 of Moby-Dick: "This peculiarity is strikingly evinced in the head....It is also very curiously displayed in the side fin, the bones of which almost exactly answer to the bones of the human hand, minus only the thumb. This fin has four regular bone-fingers, the index, middle, ring, and little finger. But all these are permanently lodged in their fleshy covering, as the human fingers in an artificial covering. 'However recklessly the whale may sometimes serve us,' said humorous Stubb one day, 'he can never be truly said to handle us without mittens'" (NN 264; NCE 218; LCRE 240). Entirely undeciphered, the lost annotation in the bottom margin may have contributed to Stubb's words.

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075 (marked)

24-28] erased pencil checkmark.
27-28] erased pencil underlines.

Commentary

075 (marked)

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Melville used content marked at 24-28 with 72.1-5 above, including the title "lord of the seignories," to satirize the proprietary entitlements of landed gentry in Chapter 102 in Moby-Dick: "Sir Clifford's whale has been articulated throughout; so that, like a great chest of drawers, you can open and shut him, in all his bony cavities--spread out his ribs like a gigantic fan--and swing all day upon his lower jaw. Locks are to be put upon some of his trap-doors and shutters; and a footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of keys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep at the whispering gallery in the spinal column; threepence to hear the echo in the hollow of his cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivalled view from his forehead" (NN 451; NCE 346; LCRE 397).

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076 (marked)

18-20] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

076 (marked)

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In Chapter 102 of Moby-Dick Melville uses the information at 18-20 to bolster Ishmael's mock-authoritative claims for the authenticity of his osteological measurements: "But first, be it recorded, that, in this matter, I am not free to utter any fancied measurement I please. Because there are skeleton authorities you can refer to, to test my accuracy. There is a Leviathanic Museum, they tell me, in Hull, England, one of the whaling ports of that country, where they have some fine specimens of fin-backs and other whales" (NN 451; NCE 346; LCRE 397).

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077

078 (marked)

12-13] erased pencil checkmark (not visible in enhanced image).
15] erased pencil checkmark (not visible in enhanced image).

Commentary

078 (marked)

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The sperm whale's head, as marked at 12-13, is described as "nearly" a third of its overall length in Chapters 70 and 76, and as "embracing" a third of its length in Chapter 77 of Moby-Dick (NN 310, 336, 339; NCE 249, 267, 269; LCRE 281, 303, 306).

Material marked at 15 is included in "The Nut," Chapter 80 of Moby-Dick, where Ishmael observes, "the side view of this skull is as the side view of a moderately inclined plane resting throughout on a level base. But in life...this inclined plane is angularly filled up, and almost squared by the enormous superincumbent mass of the junk and sperm. At the high end the skull forms a crater to bed that part of the mass. "(NN 348; NCE 275; LCRE 313).

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Unmarked pages 79-80

079

080

081 (marked)

13] erased pencil circle and checkmark.

Commentary

081 (marked)

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Material marked at 13 is used in Melville's augmentative and wildly out-of-proportion account of the whale's vertebrae in "Measurement of the Whale's Skeleton," Chapter 103 of Moby-Dick: "The largest, a middle one, is in width something less than three feet, and in depth more than four. The smallest, where the spine tapers away into the tail, is only two inches in width, and looks something like a white billiard-ball" (NN 454; NCE 348; LCRE 399). Page 82 of Natural History (unmarked by Melville) lists the smallest terminal vertebra as one and a half inches.

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Unmarked pages 82-84

16-17] erased pencil circle and checkmark (only partially visible in enhanced image).

Commentary

085 (marked)

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Melville enlarged content marked at 16-17 in his account of the whale's ribs in "Measurement of the Whale's Skeleton," Chapter 103 of Moby-Dick: "The ribs were ten on a side. The first, to begin from the neck, was nearly six feet long; the second, third, and fourth were each successively longer, till you came to the climax of the fifth, or one of the middle ribs, which measured eight feet and some inches. From that part, the remaining ribs diminished, till the tenth and last only spanned five feet and some inches" (NN 453; NCE 347-348; LCRE 399).

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Unmarked pages 86-87

086

087

088 (marked)

7-11] pencil checkmark.

Commentary

088 (marked)

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Material marked at 7-11 influenced a passage in "The Blanket," Chapter 68 of Moby-Dick, where Ishmael reports the "blubber is something of the consistence of firm, close-grained beef, but tougher, more elastic and compact, and ranges from eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness" (NN 305; NCE 245; LCRE 276). The passage is an augmentative rendering of Beale's measurements on page 32 of Natural History.

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Unmarked pages 89-91

1-3] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

092 (marked)

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Melville's extended rendering of the passage at 1-3 begins with the following sentence in "The Blanket," Chapter 68 of Moby-Dick: "Now, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any creature's skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet in point of fact these are no arguments against such a presumption; because you cannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the whale's body but that same blubber; and the outermost enveloping layer of any animal, if reasonably dense, what can that be but the skin?" (NN 305; NCE 245; LCRE 276).

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Unmarked pages 93-103

15-17] erased pencil circle and checkmark.

Commentary

104 (marked)

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Melville included an excerpt from the passage at 15-17 (edited for maximum effect) in the opening "Extracts" of Moby-Dick: "'Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a stroke, with immense velocity.' John Hunter's account of the dissection of a whale. (A small sized one.)'" (NN xxiii; NCE 13; LCRE 15).

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Unmarked pages 105-108

10-12] erased pencil checkmark.
20-21] erased pencil underlines and checkmark.

Commentary

109 (marked)

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From the passage at 10-12 and other information in the present paragraph, Melville created imagery and humor in "The Fountain," Chapter 85 of Moby-Dick: "Furthermore, as his windpipe solely opens into the tube of his spouting canal, and as that long canal—like the grand Erie Canal—is furnished with a sort of locks (that open and shut) for the downward retention of air or the upward exclusion of water, therefore the whale has no voice; unless you insult him by saying, that when he so strangely rumbles, he talks through his nose" (NN 372; NCE 291; LCRE 332).

Melville may have marked Hunter's hypothesis at 20-21 for its oddity. The point is not made or referred to in Moby-Dick.

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110 (marked)

1-3] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

110 (marked)

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The passage marked at 1-3 may apply to Ishmael's words in Chapter 85 of Moby-Dick: "the Sperm Whale has no proper olfactories. But what does he want of them? No roses, no violets, no Cologne-water in the sea" (NN 372; NCE 291; LCRE 332).

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Unmarked pages 111-112

111

112

113 (marked and annotated)

9-22] erased pencil score and annotation:
"brain".
25-28] erased pencil checkmark and x.
Bottom margin] erased pencil annotation:
"[four or five words] vertebra. &c".

Commentary

113 (marked and annotated)

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Whereas Melville would make no use of the detailed ratios at 9-22 in Moby-Dick, in Chapter 80 he works rigorously to offset any negative implications occasioned by the unimpressive dimensions of the sperm whale's brain: "[T]he wonderful comparative smallness of his brain proper is more than compensated by the wonderful comparative magnitude of his spinal cord" and "in reference to the Sperm Whale's hump. This august hump, if I mistake not, rises over one of the larger vertebraæ, and is, therefore, in some sort, the outer convex mould of it. From its relative situation then, I should call this high hump the organ of firmness or indomitableness in the Sperm Whale" (NN 350; NCE 276; LCRE 314).

In Chapter 80 of Moby-Dick, Ishmael states that the cavity housing the brain rarely exceeds "ten inches in length and as many in depth" (NN 378; NCE 275; LCRE 313), paralleling Melville’s markings at 25-28.

The undeciphered annotation in the bottom margin seems to have recorded Melville's interest in Beale's first-hand osteological research, as recorded also on page 72 of Natural History.

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114

115 (marked)

12-13] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

115 (marked)

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Melville's marking at 12-13 tags information he encountered at greater length on Beale's page 30, and worked into Chapter 74 of Moby-Dick, which contrasts the sperm whale's with the right whale's head, distinguishing their ears thus: "With respect to their ears, this important difference is to be observed between the sperm whale and the right. While the ear of the former has an external opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered over with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from without" (NN 331; NCE 263; LCRE 298-299).

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116 (marked and annotated)

5-7] three erased pencil checkmarks and erased pencil x.
Bottom margin] erased pencil annotation:
"A whale then a species of large condor."

Commentary

116 (marked and annotated)

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Melville makes no explicit use of the heavily marked and annotated association at 5-7 in Moby-Dick, though it may obliquely relate to Ishmael's words in "Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth: in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in Stone; in Mountains; in Stars," Chapter 57 of Moby-Dick: "With a frigate's anchors for my bridle-bitts and fasces of harpoons for spurs, would I could mount that whale and leap the topmost skies, to see whether the fabled heavens with all their countless tents really lie encamped beyond my mortal sight" (NN 271; NCE 223; LCRE 246).

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Unmarked pages 117-124

14-16] erased pencil score.

Commentary

125 (marked)

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The content marked at 14-16 parallels a passage in "The Grand Armada," Chapter 87 of Moby-Dick, wherein Melville has Ishmael report that "the subtlest secrets of the seas seemed divulged to us in this enchanted pond. We saw young Leviathan amours in the deep" (NN 388; NCE 303; LCRE 346).

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126 (marked)

14-17] erased pencil score (only partially visible in enhanced image).
15-16] erased pencil checkmark (only partially visible in enhanced image).

Commentary

126 (marked)

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Content marked at 14-17 influenced Melville's footnote on "Leviathan amours" in "The Grand Armada," Chapter 87 of Moby-Dick, when Melville explains: "When by chance these precious parts in a nursing whale are cut by the hunter's lance, the mother's pouring milk and blood rivallingly discolor the sea for rods. The milk is very sweet and rich; it has been tasted by men; it might do well with strawberries" (NN 388; NCE 303; LCRE 346).

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Ch. IX. Spermaceti (pp. 127-129)

Unmarked pages 127-129

127

128

129

Ch. X. Ambergris (pp. 130-135)

Unmarked pages 130-131

130

131

132 (marked)

9-11] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

132 (marked)

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In "The Pequod meets the Rose-bud," Chapter 91 of Moby-Dick, the account of Stubb's discovery of ambergris in the bowels of a rotting whale flatly contradicts the marked passage at 9-11: "suddenly from out the very heart of this plague, there stole a faint stream of perfume, which flowed through the tide of bad smells without being absorbed by it, as one river will flow into and then along with another, without at all blending with it for a time" (NN 407; NCE 317; LCRE 362). The operative principle of encompassed, but unadulterated, purity recurs in many arresting passages of Moby-Dick, and here anticipates Melville's allusive expansion upon remarks about the related properties of ambergris and fermented excrement at 134.25-30 below.

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133 (marked)

24] erased pencil underline.
26-27] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

133 (marked)

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Melville used material marked at 24-27 for the opening sentence of "Ambergris," Chapter 92 of Moby-Dick: "Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as an article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that subject" (NN 408; NCE 317; LCRE 363). For the first half of the chapter Melville, like Beale, organizes his discussion around the question of how ambergris originates.

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134 (marked)

6-11] erased pencil checkmark.
12-16] erased pencil checkmark.
26-29] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

134 (marked)

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Although he will draw from Beale on the roles of ambergris in cooking and ceremony, Melville omits its medicinal use in Chapter 92 of Moby-Dick. The marked passage at 6-11 may obliquely have prompted his report on the supposition that ambergris is linked to dyspepsia, with reference to a well-known laxative: "By some, ambergris is supposed to be the cause, and by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to cure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering three or four boat loads of Brandreth's pills, and then running out of harm's way, as laborers do in blasting rocks" (NN 408-409; NCE 317-18; LCRE 363).

Drawing from 12-16 and subsequent lines, in "Ambergris," Chapter 92 of Moby-Dick, Melville writes: "ambergris is soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely used in perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and pomatum. The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca, for the same purpose that frankincense is carried to St. Peter's in Rome" (NN 408; NCE 317; LCRE 363).

With 135.4-5, the passage at 25-30 prompted Melville's allusive culmination on the origin of ambergris in Chapter 92 of Moby-Dick: "Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be found in the heart of such decay; is this nothing? Bethink thee of that saying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about corruption and incorruption; how that we are sown in dishonor, but raised in glory. And likewise call to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh the best musk" (NN 409; NCE 318; LCRE 363-364). Melville here draws from Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15.42-43. Paracelsus' statement that "ordure" makes the best musk is quoted in the Vulgar Errors (1646) of Sir Thomas Browne, one of Melville's favorite authors, quoted on page 131 of Beale.

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135 (marked)

4-5] erased pencil checkmark (not visible in enhanced image).
7-10] erased pencil checkmark.
13-14] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

135 (marked)

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With 134.25-30 above, the passage at 4-5 prompted Melville's allusive culmination on the origin of ambergris in Chapter 92 of Moby-Dick: "Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be found in the heart of such decay; is this nothing? Bethink thee of that saying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about corruption and incorruption; how that we are sown in dishonor, but raised in glory. And likewise call to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh the best musk" (NN 409; NCE 318; LCRE 363-364). Melville here draws from Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15.42-43. Paracelsus' statement that "ordure" makes the best musk is quoted in the Vulgar Errors (1646) of Sir Thomas Browne, one of Melville's favorite authors, quoted on page 131 of Beale.

Melville's rendering of the information at 7-10 occurs in "Ambergris," Chapter 92 of Moby-Dick: "I have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris, certain hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought might be sailors' trousers buttons; but it afterwards turned out that they were nothing more than pieces of small squid bones embalmed in that manner" (NN 409; NCE 318; LCRE 363).

Though evidently marked for use in his own projected treatment of ambergris, Melville did not use the material at 13-14 in Moby-Dick.

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Ch. XI. Rise and Progress of the Sperm Whale Fishery (pp. 136-153)

Unmarked pages 136-137

136

137

138 (marked)

18-25] erased pencil score.

Commentary

138 (marked)

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Content marked at 18-25 influenced "The Grand Armada," Chapter 87 of Moby-Dick, in which Melville writes: "All whale boats carry certain curious contrivances, originally invented by the Nantucket Indians, called druggs. Two thick squares of wood of equal size are stoutly clenched together, so that they cross each other's grain at right angles; a line of considerable length is then attached to the middle of this block, and the other end of the line being looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a harpoon" (NCE 301; LCRE 344).

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139 (marked)

24-25] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

139 (marked)

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With its documentary character and date of origin, the information at 24-25 resembles material from which Melville would draw in the ensuing pages of this chapter. But he would omit the present particulars from his own account of the fishery's history in "The Advocate" and "The Decanter," Chapters 24 and 101 of Moby-Dick.

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140 (marked)

19-24] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

140 (marked)

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In Moby-Dick Melville alludes to the Nantucket Indians and European colonists as early whalers, at times extolling their bravery, but he does not seem to have relied explicitly on the passage at 19-24.

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Unmarked pages 141-142

141

142

143 (marked)

17] erased pencil arced score.

Commentary

143 (marked)

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Melville's use of the information at 17 appears in "The Decanter," Chapter 101 of Moby-Dick, "How long, prior to the year of our Lord 1775, this great whaling house [of Samuel Enderby] was in existence, my numerous fish-documents do not make plain; but in that year (1775) it fitted out the first English ships that ever regularly hunted the Sperm Whale" (NN 443; NCE 341; LCRE 391).

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Unmarked pages 144-145

144

145

146 (marked and annotated)

11-28] erased pencil score.
11-13] erased pencil annotation:
"Dignity
of whaling".

Commentary

146 (marked and annotated)

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Melville's nationalized rendering of the information marked and annotated at 11-28 appears in "The Advocate," Chapter 24 of Moby-Dick: "Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce but colonial, scarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried on between Europe and the long line of the opulent Spanish provinces on the Pacific coast. It was the whaleman who first broke through the jealous policy of the Spanish crown, touching those colonies; and, if space permitted, it might be distinctly shown how from those whalemen at last eventuated the liberation of Peru, Chili, and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain, and the establishment of the eternal democracy in those parts" (NN 110; NCE 99; LCRE 112-113).

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147 (marked)

1-30] erased wavy pencil score (only partially visible in enhanced image).

Commentary

147 (marked)

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Melville’s marking of the entirety of the page at 1-30 influenced "The Advocate," Chapter 24 of Moby-Dick, wherein Melville omits crediting the British with these colonial breakthroughs while continuing his appropriation along nationalist lines: "That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia, was given to the enlightened world by the whaleman....Moreover, in the infancy of the first Australian settlement, the emigrants were several times saved from starvation by the benevolent biscuit of the whale-ship luckily dropping an anchor in their waters. The uncounted isles of all Polynesia confess the same truth, and do commercial homage to the whale-ship, that cleared the way for the missionary and the merchant, and in many cases carried the primitive missionaries to their first destinations" (NN 110; NCE 99; LCRE 113). Melville's nationalism culminates with an insult to royalty in "Postscript" (Chapter 25 of Moby-Dick), excised from the British edition of The Whale.

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Unmarked pages 148-149

148

149

150 (marked and annotated)

11-13] erased pencil annotation:
"[?Syren]".

Commentary

150 (marked and annotated)

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Melville's account of the British ship Syren at 11-13 appears (with a concluding nationalist gesture) in "The Decanter," Chapter 101 of Moby-Dick, "In 1819, the same house fitted out a discovery whale ship of their own, to go on a testing cruise to the remote waters of Japan. That ship—well called the 'Syren'—made a noble experimental cruise; and it was thus that the great Japanese Whaling Ground first became generally known. The Syren in this famous voyage was commanded by a Captain Coffin, a Nantucketer" (NN 443; NCE 341; LCRE 391).

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151

152 (marked and annotated)

23-28] erased pencil annotation:
"Bounty
discontinued."

Commentary

152 (marked and annotated)

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Beale at 22-28 refers to the system of bounties put in place by the British government in the middle 1700s to encourage the growth of its whaling industry, information marked here but not used by Melville in Moby-Dick.

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153

Ch. XII. Boats and Instruments, etc. in the Sperm Whale Fishery (pp. 154-57)

Unmarked pages 154-157

154

Commentary

154

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Melville added this illustration to Beale's printed list of plates on page 012 of the book's front matter.

155

156

157

Ch. XIII. Chase and Capture of the Sperm Whale (pp. 158-184)

158 (marked)

14-16] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

158 (marked)

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Melville makes no use of the passage at 14-16 in Moby-Dick but may have marked it thinking of Owen Chase's Narrative of the Most Distressing Shipwreck of the Whaleship Essex (1821), first read by Melville in the early 1840s and summarized by Beale at the end of the present chapter.

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159 (marked)

27] erased pencil underline and checkmark.

Commentary

159 (marked)

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Melville describes or alludes to the maneuver marked at 27 in the chase scenes of Chapters 61, 100, 133, and 116 in Moby-Dick, at some points when the harpoon is hurled, rather than the lance. But he never describes the stern of a whaleboat as its "cutwater." Melville made "Stern all" something of a catch-phrase for Ahab's monomaniacal aim to destroy Moby Dick. In Chapter 111 we are told that in his sleep Ahab's "ringing cry ran through the vaulted hull, 'Stern all! the White Whale spouts thick blood!'" (NN 483, NCE 368; LCRE 423), and in Chapter 123 Starbuck overhears the captain's nocturnal outburst, "'Stern all! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart at last!'" (NN 515; NCE 387; LCRE 451).

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160

161 (marked and annotated)

12-13] erased pencil circle and checkmark (only partially visible in enhanced image).
13-14] erased pencil annotation:
"Sounding".

Commentary

161 (marked and annotated)

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Material marked at 12-13 influenced "The Pequod meets the Virgin," Chapter 81 of Moby-Dick, wherein a harpooned whale descends to a great depth with the lines of three whale boats: "Giving a sudden gasp, he tumultuously sounded. With a grating rush, the three lines flew round the loggerheads with such a force as to gouge deep grooves in them; while so fearful were the harpooneers that this rapid sounding would soon exhaust the lines, that using all their dexterous might, they caught repeated smoking turns with the rope to hold on" (NN 355; NCE 280; LCRE 318-319).

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162 (marked)

26] three erased pencil checkmarks.

Commentary

162 (marked)

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For a discussion of whaling songs in Moby-Dick, see Frank (1985). Melville did not include the line at 26 among those in his narrative.

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163

164 (marked)

14-15] erased pencil underlines and checkmark.

Commentary

164 (marked)

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Melville seems to have marked the material at 14-15 with an eye to describing it in his own narrative. But he would not go on portray the signal in any of the chase scenes of Moby-Dick.

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165 (marked)

15] pencil circle.
21] pencil circle.

Commentary

165 (marked)

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Melville at 15 and 21 applies circles at the beginning- and end-points of a passage he would include as the first of his two excerpts from Beale in the opening "Extracts" section of Moby-Dick (NN XXV; NCE 14; LCRE 17). There Melville's alteration of "agony" to "agonies" is typical of his idiom, as is his altering of punctuation to improve flow.

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166 (marked)

17-18] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

166 (marked)

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The content marked at 17-18 is echoed in "The Pequod meets the Virgin," Chapter 81 of Moby-Dick, where the old blind whale based on 36.10-12 is said to "spout thick blood" when slain by whalemen, "bespattering them and their glorying crews all over with showers of gore" (NN 358; NCE 282; LCRE 321).

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167

168 (marked)

29-30] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

168 (marked)

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As pointed out at 39.14-15, the expression "white water" checkmarked at 29-30 is used in both the narration and the dialogue of Moby-Dick, most prominently in Chapter 48, "The First Lowering," where at the sighting of distant whales we are told: "To a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would have been visible at that moment; nothing but a troubled bit of greenish white water, and thin scattered puffs of vapor hovering over it, and suffusingly blowing off to leeward, like the confused scud from white rolling billows" (NN 222, 233 ; NCE 185, 186; LCRE 206, 207).

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169

170 (marked and annotated)

6] erased pencil underline.
5-10] erased pencil annotation:
"did not want
to [—?—] his
[—?—] of
[—?—]."

Commentary

170 (marked and annotated)

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The white frothy tops of ocean waves are identified not as "sea caps" as marked at line 6 but as "snow-caps" in "The Life-Buoy," Chapter 126 of Moby-Dick, where they are similarly linked to the dangers of drowning (NN 525; NCE 394; LCRE 460).

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Unmarked pages 171-180

173

Melville added this illustration to Beale's printed list of plates on page 012 of the book's front matter.

14-16] erased pencil score.
14-15] erased pencil circle.
28] pencil underline.
28-29] erased pencil circle.

Commentary

181 (marked)

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Like other circle markings in Melville's marginalia to Beale, the one at 14-15 marks a technical expression he would use in the text of Moby-Dick. In "The Fountain," Chapter 85, Melville refers to the "obstinacy of [the whale] in having his spoutings out," and asks: "Now, why should the whale thus insist upon having his spoutings out, unless it be to replenish his reservoir of air, ere descending for good?" (NN 371; NCE 291; LCRE 332).

Melville's rhetorical and thematic interest in traits of immensity may have prompted him to underline Beale's reference at line 28 to the "tons" of spray thrown off by a fleeing whale. In "Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True Pictures of Whaling Scenes," Chapter 56 of Moby-Dick, Melville would use the term in describing the painting of a Right Whale by French artist Ambrose Louis Garnery: "the thick-lipped Leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons of tumultuous white curds in his wake" (NN 266; NCE 219; LCRE 242). Melville's marginal circle at 28-29 may mark the whaling expression "fast," employed in the chase scenes and cetological content of Moby-Dick, and used figuratively in Chapter 89, "Fast Fish and Loose Fish."

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182 (marked and annotated)

13-14] erased pencil underlines, checkmark and circle.
26-31] erased pencil score.
29] erased pencil circle and x.
Bottom margin] erased pencil x and annotation:
"As when the water issuing [—?—] off from a
fountain [—?—] & slowly lowers—so the
dying spout of the whale."

Commentary

182 (marked and annotated)

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Content marked at 13-14 appears in "The Pequod meets the Virgin," Chapter 81 of Moby-Dick, where Melville writes: "Even now, when the boats pulled upon this whale, and perilously drew over his swaying flukes, and the lances were darted into him, they were followed by steady jets from the new made wound" (NN357; NCE 282; LCRE 321).

Melville's close attention to Beale's discussion of the whale's death flurry at 26-31 forecasts similar scenes in Chapters 61, 73, and 81 of Moby-Dick, where in the third of these he went on to incorporate an expanded version of the annotation in the bottom margin: "As when by unseen hands the water is gradually drawn off from some mighty fountain, and with half-stifled melancholy gurglings the spray-column lowers and lowers to the ground—so the last long dying spout of the whale" (NN 358; NCE 282; LCRE 321).

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183 (marked)

1-20] erased pencil wavy score.
4] pencil underline.
3-4] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

183 (marked)

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The two notorious whales marked at 1-20 are discussed in "The Affidavit," Chapter 45 of Moby-Dick, in which the American edition inconsistently identified them as "Timor Tom" and "New Zealand Jack." There Melville cites both as evidence of the sperm whale's capacity for ferocity while building up to his argument that a sperm whale is capable of sinking a ship.

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184 (marked and annotated)

3-5] erased pencil checkmark.
Bottom margin] erased pencil annotation:
"'Killers' dragging the whale away
from the vortex (Ex[.] [—?—])
'Old Thunder' /[?Peleg]/".

Commentary

184 (marked and annotated)

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Beale's summary of the sinking of the Essex inspired Melville to record here a rough sketch for a similar catastrophe in his own narrative, though differing substantially from the one he would finally portray in Moby-Dick. "Killers" probably signifies the station among whaleboat crews identified as "headsman or whale-killer" in Chapter 62 of Moby-Dick, where the position is occupied by the officers of the Pequod. The notation establishes the quite startling fact that Melville had at some point considered a narrative episode in which the boat crews lose their ship to an especially dangerous whale, which they succeed in killing, and whose carcass they save from the vortex caused by the sinking vessel. The conjectural reading "Peleg" may help to substantiate Hayford's argument (1978) that the now minor character of Chapters 16, 18, and 22 originally played a much larger role (probably that of captain) in Melville's narrative plans, and that he likely went by the moniker "Old Thunder" before it was transferred to Ahab. For a fuller discussion, see the critical introduction to this digital copy.

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Ch. XIV. Of the "Cutting In" and "Trying Out" (pp. 185-187)

185 (marked)

7] erased pencil underline (only partially visible in enhanced image).

Commentary

185 (marked)

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Melville would devote a chapter to both of the stages underlined at line 7 in the process of converting sperm whale blubber into oil: "Cutting In," Chapter 67, and "The Try-Works," Chapter 96 of Moby-Dick.

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186 (marked)

7-9] erased pencil x.
22-26] erased pencil score and circle.

Commentary

186 (marked)

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Melville's marginal x at 7-9 may indicate his initial impulse to annotate Beale's comparison, but he did not finally do so. The passage contributed to Melville's simile in "Cutting In," Chapter 67 of Moby-Dick: "Now as the blubber envelopes the whale precisely as the rind does an orange, so is it stripped off from the body precisely as an orange is sometimes stripped by spiralizing it" (NN 304 ; NCE 244; LCRE 274). The sentence would seem to have a composite origin in both Beale and Bennett (1840), the second of whom compares the process to peeling an apple (2:209).

Melville would go on to dramatize the rapid submersion of the sperm whale's "case" marked at 22-26 in "Cistern and Buckets," Chapter 78 of Moby-Dick, where it descends by accident rather than routine, with Tashtego's fall into the case and the breaking of its suspending chains: "with a thunder-boom, the enormous mass dropped into the sea, like Niagara's Table-Rock into the whirlpool; the suddenly relieved hull rolled away from it, to far down her glittering copper; and all caught their breath, as half swinging—now over the sailors' heads, and now over the water—Daggoo, through a thick mist of spray, was dimly beheld clinging to the pendulous tackles, while poor, buried-alive Tashtego was sinking utterly down to the bottom of the sea!" (NN 343; NCE 271; LCRE 308).

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187

Ch. XV. Places of Resort of the Sperm Whale (pp. 188-191)

188

189 (annotated)

5] erased pencil annotation:
"Barley Banks."

Commentary

189 (annotated)

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With 61.18-20, Beale's reference to the Brazil banks led to Melville's footnote on the subject in "Brit," Chapter 58 of Moby-Dick, and perhaps helped prompt his idea for the chapter as a whole. Melville had seen the banks himself as a sailor in 1841 and 1844.

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Unmarked pages 190-192

190

191

192

South Sea Whaling Voyage (pp. 192-393)

Unmarked pages 192-205

2-11] pencil broken score.

Commentary

206 (marked)

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In marking the description of an earthquake at Coquimbo, Chile at 2-11, Melville seems to have taken careful interest in Beale's coordinated imagery of suddenness and contraction. Earthquakes are alluded to with varying rhetorical aims in Chapters 42, 45, 48, 75, and 119 of Moby-Dick, but never with the imagery used here by Beale.

Unmarked pages 207-208

207

208

209 (marked)

15] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

209 (marked)

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Melville had already used vocabulary and action similar to material marked at line 15 in his first book Typee (1846), with its central situation of the lone westerner among natives: "As I passed through the noisy throng, which by this time completely environed the Ti, I looked with fearful curiosity at the three packages..." (236). Melville did not draw upon the present passage in the composition of Moby-Dick.

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Unmarked pages 210-212

19-22] erased pencil checkmark.

Commentary

213 (marked)

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Material marked at 19-22 focusing on the noise of the seals, with the attendant connection of cubs to their dams, may have influenced Ahab's explanation to his superstitious crew—in "The Life-Buoy," Chapter 126 of Moby-Dick—of cries heard at night: "Those rocky islands the ship had passed were the resort of great numbers of seals, and some young seals that had lost their dams, or some dams that had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh the ship and kept company with her, crying and sobbing with their human sort of wail" (NN 524; NCE 393; LCRE 458).

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Unmarked pages 214-217

218 (marked and annotated)

18] pencil checkmark.
Bottom margin] pencil checkmark and annotation:
"Charles Fenno?"

Commentary

218 (marked and annotated)

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Melville's cautious identification evidenced by his annotation in the bottom margin may indicate his surprise at finding a contemporary American writer named in a British work of natural history. For Melville's one documented discussion of the poet and editor Charles Fenno Hoffman (1806-1884), see his 5 April 1849 letter to Evert Duyckinck in Correspondence, 128. Hoffman's A Winter in the Far West was published in 1835.

Unmarked pages 219-252

Unmarked pages 253-268

25-28] pencil score.

269 (marked)

On this and subsequent pages Melville pays close attention to how Beale describes the gradual onset of a typhoon at 25-28, marking the ominous departure of sea fowl as the storm gathers. In contrast to Beale's measured and unhurried account, a typhoon strikes suddenly in "The Candles," Chapter 119 of Moby-Dick, illustrating Melville's thematic preoccupation with the thin line separating tranquility and peril in human experience: "It will sometimes burst from out that cloudless sky, like an exploding bomb upon a dazed and sleepy town" (NN 503; NCE 379; LCRE 440).

270

271 (marked)

17-19] pencil checkmark.

Commentary

271 (marked)

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In marking 17-19, Melville appears to have been interested in the comparison of contrary substances in Beale's description of the power of winds and waves to hit the ship as though they were a solid mass. Melville's fascination with the overlapping qualities of opposed principles was acute, as perhaps best illustrated in "Ambergris," Chapter 92 of Moby-Dick, discussed at 134-35.

272 (marked)

13-21] pencil score.

Commentary

272 (marked)

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In all likelihood Melville read the passage at 13-21 with an eye for including similar material in his own narrative. During the typhoon in "The Candles," Chapter 119 of Moby-Dick, an especially destructive wave descends upon the Pequod to destroy the stern of Ahab's suspended whaleboat: "A great rolling sea, dashing high up against the reeling ship's high tetering side, stove in the boat's bottom at the stern, and left it again, all dripping through like a sieve" (NN 503-504; NCE 379; LCRE 440).

Unmarked pages 273-279

1-5] pencil score.

280 (marked)

When he marked the passage at 1-5 Melville may already have had in progress Chapters 64, 66, and 72, featuring the ferocity of sharks, which in Moby-Dick symbolize the heartless severity of the material world. As reported in Chapter 66, "The Shark Massacre," when cut by whaling spades the sharks "viciously snapped, not only at each other's disembowelments, but like flexible bows, bent round, and bit their own; till those entrails seemed swallowed over and over again by the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound. Nor was this all. It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses and ghosts of these creatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality seemed to lurk in their very joints and bones, after what might be called the individual life had departed" (NN 302; NCE 243; LCRE 273).

Unmarked pages 281-284

12-20] pencil score.

285 (marked)

It is curious that Melville at 12-20 scored Beale's account of how he and several sailors navigated tumultuous waves to land their whaleboat on a shore at the Bonin Islands off Japan. No such episode occurs in Moby-Dick, where except for the opening land chapters action occurs on the open sea. As observed in the critical introduction to this digital copy, when he acquired Beale in July 1850 Melville seems to have been largely uncertain about how he would develop and conclude his whaling narrative. With the recovered notation on 184, which suggests a narrative option that would include multiple survivors, Melville's marking of the passage may indicate an abandoned plan to extend the story beyond the sinking of their ship.

286

Plate

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Unmarked pages Plate verso-287

Plate verso

287

288 (marked)

11-12 pencil checkmark.
12] pencil underline.
13-17] pencil score.

Commentary

288 (marked)

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With its rueful conception of Noah's deliverance, the marked text at 11-17 accords well with human consciousness as portrayed in Moby-Dick, where the narrative ends with reference to the Biblical flood, and where Ishmael's survival adds the finishing touch to a running theme of forsaken mortality.

Unmarked pages 289-297

25-30] pencil score.

298 (marked)

For Melville's reliance on Beale to promote (along nationalist lines) the whaling industry and the bravery of whalemen, see 146.11-28 and 147.1-30. Melville at 25-30 seems primarily interested in Beale's point about the frequently tragic results of their bravery. The notion is expressed poetically, and for thematic purposes, in "The Quarter-Deck," Chapter 36 of Moby-Dick, after the sailors aboard the Pequod have pledged to help Ahab hunt down and destroy the white whale: "[H]e stood for an instant searchingly eyeing every man of his crew. But those wild eyes met his, as the bloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their leader, ere he rushes on at their head in the trail of the bison; but, alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of the Indian" (NN 165; NCE 141; LCRE 160).

Unmarked pages 299-301

21-30] pencil score.

302 (marked)

In scoring 21-30 Melville seems to have read with interest and amusement Beale's description of the sailors' pantomimic efforts to communicate with the natives of New Britain, Papua New Guinea, and may have pondered their awkward showing as agents of civilization. In Typee he had created a similar episode for the protagonists' initial contact with Typee natives, with Toby going "through with a complete series of pantomimic illustrations—opening his mouth from ear to ear, and thrusting his fingers down his throat, gnashing his teeth and rolling his eyes about, till I verily believe the poor creatures took us for a couple of white cannibals who were about to make a meal of them" (69).

Unmarked pages 303-342

29-30] pencil underlines and checkmark.

Commentary

343 (marked)

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The instance of the mate's amputation off the coast of Japan appearing at 29-30 parallels the dismemberment of Captain Ahab, who in Chapter 28 of Moby-Dick is said to have been "dismasted off Japan" (NN 124; NCE 109; LCRE 125). In locating the narrative's seminal act of mutilation off the Japanese coast, Melville exploited western notions of the region as a savage locale stubbornly unsubdued by western interests, as observed by Reising and Kvidera (1997). (At a later stage of composition Melville inconsistently located Ahab's dismemberment at the equator [NN 536; NCE 400; LCRE 468].) In marking the present passage Melville probably noted the grim humor of the phrasing and, more seriously, its equation of bodily and psychological states.

Unmarked pages 344-357

358 (marked and annotated)

14-16] pencil arced score and x.
Bottom margin] pencil x and annotation:
"Sort of a ground-swell in this
sentence."

Commentary

358 (marked and annotated)

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Himself a master of the graceful and extended compound sentence, Melville at 14-16 marks and notes the cresting rhetorical property of Beale’s language. In "The Sermon," Chapter 9 of Moby-Dick, Ishmael says of Father Mapple, "when describing Jonah's sea-storm, [he] seemed tossed by a storm himself. His deep chest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossed arms seemed the warring elements at work" (NN 47; NCE 52-53; LCRE 59). Melville’s use of the term in his annotation in the bottom margin reflects his creative absorption at the time of composition with “the watery part of the world,” as he puts it in the opening line of "Loomings," Chapter 1 of Moby-Dick.

Unmarked pages 359-393

Back matter

Top right corner] pencil notation (not in Melville's hand):
"J. B. 11-20[or 30]-37[or 27]".

Rear free endpaper verso (inscribed)

Upper leaf] pencil notes:
"Naturalist's Library, Vol 6.^th
Vide Langsdorff—Captain D'Wolf,
Brazil fishery,
& page 342 Indian Fishery.
Dib[—?—] [six to eight words]
U. S. S Peacock stove by a whale, &
finally stove by a rock. My old frnd
Com: Ap Catesby Jones".

Commentary

Rear free endpaper verso (inscribed)

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At 18.5-6, Melville marked Beale's reference to Robert Hamilton's The Natural History of the Ordinary Cetacea or Whales (Edingurgh: Lizars, 1837), from the multivolume Naturalist's Library edited by William Jardine. Melville's maternal uncle John D'Wolf sailed with Georg H. von Langsdorff, whose Voyages and Travels in Various Parts of the World (1817) was a source for Melville's first book Typee. Langsdorff's account of the Brazil whale fishery appears on pages 68 and 69 of Voyages and Travels, and his section on tools and methods of whaling employed by Aleutian natives appears on pages 342 and 343. The Peacock was commanded by Thomas AP Catesby Jones, who also commanded the US Navy's Pacific Squadron from aboard the USS United States when Melville served on the ship in 1844. The decomissioned Peacock was broken apart in New York harbor in 1828, and the ship's successor of the same name ran aground in 1841.

An undetermined number of words are here covered over by paste residue from the discarded "date due" slip of an unidentified circulating library that owned Melville's copy after it left his collection. The inscriptions "BX" at upper right and "ae" on the lower half of the leaf are likely book-seller markings. Melville's abbreviation of "friend" as "frnd" (line 6) is preserved.

Rear pastedown (inscribed, with institutional and binder's labels)

Upper leaf] pencil notes:
"Daniel Boon — neighbor's spout &c".
"(1100 lb avge of a bull ox.)".
Upper leaf] institutional label.
Bottom left corner] original binder's label.

Commentary

Rear pastedown (inscribed, with institutional and binder's labels)

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Melville's notation involves the widely circulated legend that the American frontiersman Daniel Boone escaped further west whenever he spotted the smoke of a neighbor's fire or chimney. Here Melville's reference signals his intention to use the information in his discussion of whales in Moby-Dick, which he does in part while describing the aging bull sperm whale in Chapter 88, "Schools and Schoolmasters": "Like venerable moss-bearded Daniel Boone, he will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to wife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives she is, though she keeps so many moody secrets" (NN 393; NCE 307; LCRE 350). Melville's source for the average weight of a male ox is unidentified.

Melville's misspelling of "Boone" is preserved along with his abbreviation of "average" as "avge" (line 2).

Rear board

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