A Definitive Edition of Moby-Dick

Abstract

flIHE MANSFIELD and Vincent edition of Moby-Dick' has called ii forth comment ranging from brief praise to vitriolic abuse.2 The result has been a general uncertainty as to its reliability, and since it is intended to be part of a very much needed complete edition of Melville's works,3 the point is worth settling. A collation with the text of the first American edition4 has demonstrated that, if we are willing to make allowance for compositors' errors and some editorial oversight, we have a definitive edition. Melville saw the first American edition through the press;5 he made no later revisions in the text; and no manuscript copy has been discovered. The first English edition, although published a month earlier, was taken from the proof sheets of the American edition.6 It suffered extensive deletion and revision at the hands of the English editors.7 Mansfield and Vincent were correct in their decision to accept the first American edition as the basic text, and to make only such changes as were obviously called for. In the Textual Notes they list twenty emendations. In every case, as