[AMERICAN PERIODICALS]. Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Volumes 1–98. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1850–1899.
98 volumes, 8vo. Illustrated. Uniformly bound in twentieth–century half purple calf over purple pebbled cloth, spines ruled and lettered in gilt in compartments, four raised bands (spines generally sunned, bindings rubbed with occasional wear and soiling, some hinges starting, some occasional soiling, wrinkling in text, some gutters starting. Provenance: Norman Stanley (bookplate).
INCLUDES THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF ANY PART OF HERMAN MELVILLE’S “MOBY DICK”, which first saw print in the October 1851 issue titled “The Town–Ho’s Story” on p. 658 (“From The Whale. The title of a new work by Mr. Melville, in the press of Harper and Brothers, and now publishing in London by Mr. Bentley.”). Also includes Mark Twain’s first nationally published story “Forty–Three Days in an Open Boat”, appearing in Vol. 34, pp. 104–112 (on the Contents page of that volume, the entry is listed as: “Boat, an Open, Forty–Three Days in by Mark Swain [sic]”). The Civil War years are also noted. Harper’s Magazine is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the United States and is still being published. The magazine began by publishing pirated material by British authors (including Dickens, Thackeray and the Brontë sisters), and later issues featured American authors and artists. It is rare to find such a long run of this magazine, which is almost never seen this complete.