Pics made sense of Moby Dick

A 1930 illustrated copy of Moby Dick that sold for $2,500 made more than double the sum Herman Melville ever earned from the novel that confused and bemused readers and critics on its launch in 1851 and only sold a little over 3,000 copies up to his death in 1891. One contemporary review panned it as “poetry in blubber.”

Today, of course, the existential fable/ allegory of Captain Ahab’s quest for the white whale – at least I think that’s what it’s about – is revered as a classic. Melville’s rehabilitation began in the 1920s and gathered momentum with the publication of the celebrated 1930 edition lavishly and fabulously illustrated by leading American illustrator and print maker Rockwell Kent. If only the original edition had had pics Melville might not have had to eke out his later years in much reduced circumstances as a customs inspector.