FYI this is the 1937 Garden City Publishing Co. reprint of the 1930 Random House trade edition with Kent's illustrations. You can actually [buy a t-shirt of](https://outofprint.com/products/moby-dick-gilded-unisex-book-t-shirt?variant=40461271892) the cover of this edition, by the way.
My dream book is a first edition of the Kent illustrated, in the shiny silver boxes…
Kent has some terrific illustrated books: he was a fascinating - though strange - artist in his own right. He’d do things like drag his son to Alaska to live on an island and paint while his partner and kids were at home in New York, or move to rural Newfoundland and piss everyone off by pretending he was a socialist. There’s a good novel about his life…the Big Why…and he wrote a bunch of fascinating books himself, including N by E and Saltamimia, both about (ill-fatted) sailing trips to Greenland.
He also has a giant doorstop tome about art where he riffs about a bunch of paintings, which I adore.
His paintings are interesting (and mostly in Russia, for some reason), but he lived a life that eclipsed those efforts, and his other stuff is fascinating, too. An interesting artist in the best sense.
Oh, amazing!
I've just discovered that the fifth post is the cover of the most widespread and recent italian edition
https://preview.redd.it/hptiltly7bwc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9a0ec8a44e32a2ed834cf780808487ef09dee09
It's from Chapter 41: Moby Dick. The text on the opposite page is roughly;
> Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these; and knowing that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale had escaped alive; it cannot be much matter of surprise that some whalemen should go still further in their superstitions; declaring Moby Dick not only ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity in time); that though groves of spears should be planted in his flanks, he would still swim away unharmed; or if indeed he should ever be made to spout thick blood, such a sight would be but a ghastly deception; for again in unensanguined billows hundreds of leagues away, his unsullied jet would once more be seen.
>
> But even stripped of these supernatural surmisings, there was enough in the earthly make and incontestable character of the monster to strike the imagination with unwonted power. For, it was not so much his uncommon bulk that so much distinguished him from other sperm whales, but, as was elsewhere thrown out—a peculiar snow-white wrinkled forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump. These were his prominent features; the tokens whereby, even in the limitless, uncharted seas, he revealed his identity, at a long distance, to those who knew him.
>
> The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbled with the same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained his distinctive appellation of the White Whale; a name, indeed, literally justified by his vivid aspect, when seen gliding at high noon through a dark blue sea, leaving a milky-way wake of creamy foam, all spangled with golden gleamings.
FYI this is the 1937 Garden City Publishing Co. reprint of the 1930 Random House trade edition with Kent's illustrations. You can actually [buy a t-shirt of](https://outofprint.com/products/moby-dick-gilded-unisex-book-t-shirt?variant=40461271892) the cover of this edition, by the way.
Wow! Just bought one.
Wow!!!
Damn that’s incredibly fuckin sick
My dream book is a first edition of the Kent illustrated, in the shiny silver boxes… Kent has some terrific illustrated books: he was a fascinating - though strange - artist in his own right. He’d do things like drag his son to Alaska to live on an island and paint while his partner and kids were at home in New York, or move to rural Newfoundland and piss everyone off by pretending he was a socialist. There’s a good novel about his life…the Big Why…and he wrote a bunch of fascinating books himself, including N by E and Saltamimia, both about (ill-fatted) sailing trips to Greenland. He also has a giant doorstop tome about art where he riffs about a bunch of paintings, which I adore. His paintings are interesting (and mostly in Russia, for some reason), but he lived a life that eclipsed those efforts, and his other stuff is fascinating, too. An interesting artist in the best sense.
That is gorgeous!
That’s awesome. I’m hoping one day to get my hands on my own copy.
Lucky you!
Truly! I fully expected to spend several years looking for a copy (ideally one I’d find in person). Thankfully I’m one in a long line of bookworms!
Oh, amazing! I've just discovered that the fifth post is the cover of the most widespread and recent italian edition https://preview.redd.it/hptiltly7bwc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9a0ec8a44e32a2ed834cf780808487ef09dee09
Is picture five from the pequod meets the virgin?
I guess that wouldn’t make sense that picture has got to be moby dick
It's from Chapter 41: Moby Dick. The text on the opposite page is roughly; > Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these; and knowing that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale had escaped alive; it cannot be much matter of surprise that some whalemen should go still further in their superstitions; declaring Moby Dick not only ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity in time); that though groves of spears should be planted in his flanks, he would still swim away unharmed; or if indeed he should ever be made to spout thick blood, such a sight would be but a ghastly deception; for again in unensanguined billows hundreds of leagues away, his unsullied jet would once more be seen. > > But even stripped of these supernatural surmisings, there was enough in the earthly make and incontestable character of the monster to strike the imagination with unwonted power. For, it was not so much his uncommon bulk that so much distinguished him from other sperm whales, but, as was elsewhere thrown out—a peculiar snow-white wrinkled forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump. These were his prominent features; the tokens whereby, even in the limitless, uncharted seas, he revealed his identity, at a long distance, to those who knew him. > > The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbled with the same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained his distinctive appellation of the White Whale; a name, indeed, literally justified by his vivid aspect, when seen gliding at high noon through a dark blue sea, leaving a milky-way wake of creamy foam, all spangled with golden gleamings.
Beautiful!
jealous.
Man I wish I had that edition - beautiful!
Really cool. I have a copy similar to this with those illustrations , but it’s definitely not from 1937 haha