The Whale: A Neglected Review

The Whale: A Neglected Review KEVIN J. HAYES University of Central Oklahoma M any British readers enjoyed The Whale, Richard Bentley’s tripledecker version of Moby-Dick, when it first appeared in 1851, but two complaints dominate most of the contemporary reviews. Some British reviewers criticized what they considered to be the book’s blasphemous passages; others found baffling the absence of the epilogue, which gave the impression that The Whale had been narrated by a first-person narrator who does not survive. But reprinted below is a formerly neglected British review, from the Church of England Quarterly Review 31 (January 1852): 224–27, that is unexpectedly positive. For the product of a religious journal, it is remarkably kind, mentioning briefly that Melville offends only when he treats sacred subjects but otherwise offering an enthusiastic appreciation. The review presents two block quotes from The Whale and relies heavily on Melville’s diction for its paraphrases. In places, the review quotes from The Whale without using quotation marks and omits intervening text without using ellipses. In the reprint below, the second block quotation is abbreviated to its first and last sentences: For a natural history of the whale, and of all the species of the whale, we must undoubtedly for the future consult these volumes. It is clear that hitherto we have had but erroneous views of his outward form, of his inward structure, and daily habits; and we may add, moreover, of his instincts and his mental and physical powers. In Herman Melville’s opinion, the whale ought to be held in far higher estimation than he is, not merely from his huge bulk, but from his superior sagacity. The elephant he considers to be in every way inferior, and in no respect whatever to be placed in comparison with the whale. But the volumes are not confined to the whale alone, but to a variety of subjects, little or much, or not at all connected with the main theme. There is a story, of course, and a strange and tragical story; but the hero of the book is decidedly a whale of a peculiar appearance, of a peculiar ability, and a very peculiar character. His name or cognomen is Moby Dick; and for courage, sagacity, and good-luck, unequalled, perhaps, by any of his tribe. The catastrophe he at length caused was of precisely the same kind as happened to the whale ship Ann Alexander in August, 1850, while in the South Pacific; and to the whale ship Essex in the same seas about thirty C  2009 The Authors Journal compilation C  2009 The Melville Society and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 80 L E V I A T H A N A J O U R N A L O F M E L V I L L E S T U D I E S T H E W H A L E years since. But we have in these volumes most graphically brought before us all that concerns whale-fishing generally: the fitting up of the craft—the description of characters that sail in her—their employments, their labours, their hardships, their dangers; and an awfully heathen set they would seem to be—Nantucket men chiefly—with direct idolaters from the South Sea and Malay Islands as assistants. It is a wild life of adventure they lead: monotonous, perhaps, in its wildness, but still at times of the most exciting interest to the crew, from their great personal peril and their own personal interest to secure the one object of their pursuit. As a matter of course, Herman Melville writes in his own way to please himself: he certainly writes as few men but himself could, and pens down thoughts, the strangest at times, that were ever found on paper. Many of these would be better for pruning, and a pen run through a few of them would greatly improve a second edition. There is, nevertheless, much that is very clever in these volumes—much that is instructive and entertaining; for, kept to the text of “the whale,” the writer is inimitable and most amusing: it is only when he touches upon other and sacred subjects that he...