Monday, February 7, 2011

Today in History

From The New York Times, on this day in 1932:

SOURCE FOR 'MOBY DICK' TO BE SOLD AT AUCTION; Book Used by Melville Telling of Whale's Attack on Ship Goes on Block Tuesday.

Not having read the full article ($), one assumes this book to be Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex, by Owen Chase. How much did it go for? And where is it now?
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4 comments:

  1. Iron-bound BucketFebruary 7, 2011 at 12:50 PM

    Here's an article that mentions the sale of the Essex book ($1675 was the price paid):
    http://bit.ly/hwUp2Y

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  2. LemuelFebruary 7, 2011 at 6:55 PM

    Ah, I see from IBB's link that they were auctioning the copy that Melville actually owned. That makes quite a difference.

    $1675 in 1932 supposedly had the purchasing power of $26,300 in 2009, according to the calculator at How Much Is That in Real Money.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Iron-bound BucketFebruary 7, 2011 at 11:03 PM

    And you know who gave Chase's Narrative to Melville?
    http://bit.ly/hU6oom

    ReplyDelete
  4. LemuelFebruary 8, 2011 at 9:16 AM

    And you know who gave Chase's Narrative to Melville?

    But of course! How could I forget?

    (You're a clever one, IBB.)

    ReplyDelete