The Raven and the Whale: The War of Words and Wits in the Era of Poe and Melville (Signed)
New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1956.
First Edition. Hardcover.
First Edition, Signed Association Copy. Warm presentation inscription to Henry and Eleanor (Melville Thomas) Metcalf signed by the author on half-title and dated in April of the year of publication. Eleanor Melville Metcalf was Herman Melville’s granddaughter and herself produced two books on her grandfather published by Harvard University Press: Herman Melville: Journal of a Visit to London and the Continent (1948) & Herman Melville: Cycle & Epicycle (1953). In his acknowledgments, Perry notes that he gained great insight from the latter title while working on his present book.
A history of the New York literary scene between 1833 and 1857 focusing on the acrimonious battle between the conservative Lewis Gaylord Clark, editor of the influential Knickerbocker, and Evert Duyckinck, an editor at Wiley and Putnam, who commissioned works by both Poe and Melville.
Clark and his set stood for a standard of elegance and gentility, of enthusiasm for things foreign and, in literature particularly, things English - which were readily available due to the absence of international copyright protections. Duyckinck represented ”Young America” – Democrats and champions not only of copyright but of an American national literature.
Clark and his faction carried the day and neither Poe nor Melville were recognized for their genius in their own time.
Item #900944Octavo, 6-3/8 x 9-5/8", turquoise cloth, pictorial endpapers, 370pp, epilogue, chronology, acknowledgments, index.
Fading to head and heel of spine and edges of cloth, a bit of wear to extreme corners, very good in edge-worn dust wrapper with a bit of moisture staining to underside, in protective mylar.
Price: $125.00