MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1849. 12mo, two volumes: pp. [i-ix] x-xii [13] 14-365 [366-372: blank] [last three leaves are blanks, Q5 used as lining for terminal endpaper, Q6 excised by the binder]; [v-x] x-xii [9] 10-11 [12] 13-387 [388: blank] [1]-8: ads [text complete despite gap in pagination], double flyleaves at front of volume one and at front of volume two, single flyleaf at rear of volume two, publisher's decorated green cloth, front and rear panels stamped in blind, spine panels stamped in gold and blind, yellow coated endpapers. First U.S. edition. Melville's MOBY-DICK (1851) was "preceded by several book-length tales in which heightened travelogue -- as in TYPEE: A PEEP AT POLYNESIAN LIFE (1846) -- gradually turned into the metaphysical fantasy of MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER (1849), in which realistic narrative, satire and outright fantasy intermingle. Mardi itself is an archipelago which, as the tale progresses, becomes indistinguishable from and coextensive with the world. The story begins as two sailors leave their ship and rescue a white woman from human sacrifice; after she disappears, they start an ornate quest for her. The protagonist takes on godly qualities, and the girl increasingly seems to combine prelapsarian virtues with the Lamia-like allure of a double who haunts her seekers. Eventually five comrades become involved in the quest, visiting at least thirteen allegorically conceived islands (one clearly the USA) in the great archipelago; but they never reach their goal, and the tale slingshots the heroes into further travels." - Clute and Grant (eds), The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997), p. 636. "MARDI is three different stories at once, a high seas adventure, a broad-ranging satire, and a fantasy ... Because Melville was not quite ready for fantasy or satire, and because his goals of amusement, mystification, and speculation tend in this book to work at cross-purposes, the amalgam breaks down ... MARDI simply confused contemporary readers, although in retrospect we can see it as a prospectus for greater works to come." - Attebery, The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature From Irving to Le Guin, pp. 52-3. MARDI reflects Melville's "frustrations with the restrictions of travel literature as well as his experimentation with new genres. His most audacious fictional effort up to that point in his career, MARDI has had the following generic labels applied to it: quest, epic, allegory, satire, utopian novel, romance, and philosophical novel. A term applied less frequently since the book's publication is 'fantasy.'" - Kent P. Ljungquist in Magill (ed.), Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature II, pp. 976-9. "Though somewhat formless," MARDI "is an iconoclastic 'extraordinary voyage' among islands of unsatisfactory mythologies, politics, and philosophies that blends memories of Polynesia with elements from Rabelais." - Suvin, Metamorphoses of Science Fiction, p. 143. "The movement from his first major full-length fiction, MARDI, a fantastic voyage which explores innumerable eutopias and dystopias, through MOBY-DICK, to his last full-length fiction, THE CONFIDENCE-MAN, a fantastic voyage which explores the totality of existence, is, to say the least, a major contribution to the literature of created societies." - Franklin, Future Perfect, pp. 144-5. Negley, Utopian Literature: A Bibliography 1479. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, Additions. BAL 13658. Wright (I) 1860. Signed and dated 27 April 1849 by an early owner at the upper right corner of each title page. The usual scattered foxing to the text blocks and discolored endpapers, but a superb copy with clean, unworn bindings and bright spines. Enclosed in a custom quarter red morocco slipcase (rubbed and spotted). (#178975).
Price: $3,750.00
No statement of printing on copyright page.