A curious advertisement

The Whale, as the novel was first called, was published as a classic three-decker in London on October 18, 1851, the American edition a month later on the fourteenth. As there was no international copyright agreement, Herman Melville indulged in a complicated jig of shifts and dodges to prevent piracy—British and American copyrights had to be obtained separately. One of the dodges was to bring the British edition out first but follow so rapidly with the American that the latter was published before it could be hijacked by pirate-printers. The book was therefore first typeset in America (and possibly “plated,” that is, made into stereotype plates)—indeed, Melville paid for the setting, as he hadn’t yet negotiated a contract with Harper & Brothers, his American publisher.

“This sea novel is a singular medley of naval observation, magazine article writing, satiric reflection upon the conventionalisms of civilized life, and rhapsody run mad.” 

In early September Melville dispatched the proof sheets to London, where they were rapidly edited and the type reset. American spellings were altered to British, and the publisher Richard Bentley or a quite prudish publisher’s “reader” (acting as copy editor) cut or rewrote passages offensive to British sensibility. Out went droll disparagement of British royalty and the British in general; out went mild blasphemy or simple irreverence, such as the sport Melville made of the torments of the afterlife (“hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling”). One whole