 | |  |
D. REDBURN (1849)
Heading (D). The approach to reference numbers and letters reflected here is set forth in Tanselle 1984, pp. 28-38. Underlying it is the idea that bibliographers should think independently about what will be most efficient in a given situation and not automatically assume, for example, that all the separate publications by an author must go into a section labeled "A"—a system that produces unnecessarily cumbersome references, since a typical "A" section is likely to require more complex reference numbers than the rest of the bibliography anyway, and attaching "A" to every one of them only complicates matters. One solution, as here, is to use letters to stand for an author's successive separate publications: Redburn, Melville's fourth book, is therefore taken up in a section labeled "D." This system works well with Melville, for the treatment of his book-length works would require the letters (skipping I) through about T, leaving the remaining letters to be employed in the more conventional way, designating sections recording multiple works (in this case, such categories as shorter works, collected sets, collected volumes, and appearances in anthologies). Of course, an author who wrote more books than Melville did would have to be handled differently, either by going into a doubled alphabet or (probably better) using numbers instead of letters (and then using letters instead of numbers for the next digit—e.g., "4A" instead of "D1"). In the heading illustrated here, the presence of the year 1849 is not meant to suggest that the section deals only with the first edition; this heading stands at the beginning of the entire section on Redburn, and the year is present only to aid the reader by showing the date of first publication and therefore the basis for the ordering of the sections. (In the present instance, one might wish to use "September 1849" instead, since Melville's preceding book, Mardi, had also appeared in 1849.) See also the comments on the D1 heading below.
Introduction to the section. Because each section dealing with the entire publishing history—from original publication to the present day—of one of Melville's books is fairly extensive, it seems useful to have an introduction to each section, providing the reader with a concise summary of that publishing history. This introduction may, but need not, contain information not present in the actual description; its function is to draw together in one place the salient facts established elsewhere and thus to assist readers by providing them, in effect, with a general outline of what is to follow. By combining facts from individual descriptions, it can give an overview that will help readers to place particular editions and printings in a larger context. Textual relationships among editions are an important aspect of publishing history and should be covered, along with key physical points and facts drawn from external sources. (Identification of sources used is unnecessary here if the descriptions that follow do, in one way or another, provide it.)
The publication history of Melville's fourth book follows the pattern of the two immediately preceding books: the American publisher had the work set in type from the manuscript furnished by Melville, and the British publisher used corrected proof sheets of the American edition as printer's copy; but the British edition was published six weeks earlier than the American in an attempt to establish copyright for the English publisher. Thus the edition that was first released to the public contained a text that was derived from the edition released later. The American edition, being a step closer to the manuscript (which is not known to survive) than is the British edition, is therefore the proper basis for new editions that hope to reflect Melville's intentions, though the differences between the two are relatively small in number and not of major significance. The original British edition, published by Richard Bentley, consists of a single printing, which appeared in at least three issues: the original two-volume issue dated 1849, a one-volume issue with cancel title leaves dated 1853, and an issue (two-volume?) of undetermined date with the spine imprint of T. C. Newby. Various states of individual sheets exist as a result of the movement of type during
The number of copies in the Galignani-Baudry edition has not been ascertained, but the total number printed in the two authorized editions was only 5,468 (750 in the single Bentley printing and 4,718 in the six Harper printings), earning Melville a lifetime total for this book of only $1,167.57 ($484 in a single payment from Bentley and $683.57 in half-profits from the Harpers over a period of almost four decades). At the time of Melville's death, Redburn had not been available in England for nearly forty years; and it was virtually out of print in the United States, for the Harpers' last account to Melville, on 4 March 1887, reported eighteen copies still on hand (from the printing of 147 twelve years earlier), and their 1892 catalogue did not include the title. Redburn was not one of the books revived in the years just after Melville's death, and thirty more years would pass before it came into print again—in the Constable "Standard Edition" of 1922. Since then it has been set in type eight times—three more times in the 1920s (Page, Boni, Pick-wick) and once in 1937 (Cape), 1957 (Anchor), 1969 (Northwestern-Newberry), 1976 (Penguin), and 1983 (Library of America)—and some of these editions have appeared under different imprints in later or transatlantic printings (bringing the total number of twentieth-century
| | |