Fine Books & Manuscripts

MELVILLE, Herman (1819–1891). Autograph letter signed (“H. Melville”), to Miss Coffin, New York, 13 January 1872. One page, 8vo (202 x 126 mm), embossed upper left corner. Old mailing folds, light marginal toning from old framing, a few small stains to lower margin. Provenance: Richard Manney Library (sold, Sotheby's New York, 11 October 1991, lot 227). Melville responds to an earlier inquiry made by his correspondent: “So long a time has elapsed that I cannot recall where I got the facts alluded to in your note of the 9th inst. Neither– I am so sorry to say– can I direct you where to get information additional to what you may now possess”. The Coffins were a prominent whaling family in Nantucket during the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Most notably, the cabin boy Owen Coffin, who was onboard the whaleship Essex, which in 1820 was battered by an enormous sperm whale and was the very inspiration for Melville’s Moby Dick. The small group of survivors of the attack crowded into a small lifeboat to await rescue. With no food supplies, the crew was forced to draw straws to decide among them who was to be eaten. Owen Coffin was the unfortunate victim who was shot and consumed before the boat was eventually rescued. Melville used the boy’s surname for his fictional locales, such as Coffin’s Wharf and Peter Coffin Inn. A possibly rare association of this unpublished letter.