Herman Melville - Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile, Volume Eight, Scholarly Edition

Cover

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THE WRITINGS OF HERMAN MELVILLE

The Northwestern-Newberry Edition

VOLUME EIGHT

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EDITORS
HARRISON HAYFORD, General Editor
HERSHEL PARKER, Associate General Editor
G. THOMAS TANSELLE, Bibliographical Editor

ASSOCIATES
RICHARD COLLES JOHNSON, Bibliographical Associate
BRIAN HIGGINS, Editorial Associate
ROBERT C. RYAN, Manuscript Associate

ADVISORY BOARD
JOHN HURT FISHER For the Modern Language Association of America
WILLIAM M. GIBSON For the Modern Language Association of America
LEON HOWARD For the Modern Language Association of America
WILLARD THORP For the Modern Language Association of America
MOODY E. PRIOR For Northwestern University
LAWRENCE W. TOWNER For the Newberry Library

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Israel Potter

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This volume edited by
HARRISON HAYFORD
HERSHEL PARKER
G. THOMAS TANSELLE

Historical Note by
WALTER E. BEZANSON

Associates
RICHARD COLLES JOHNSON
BRIAN HIGGINS
ROBERT C. RYAN

Contributing Scholars
JOEL MYERSON
MARY K. MADISON
R. D. MADISON

Editorial Coordinator
ALMA A. MACDOUGALL

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His Fifty Years of Exile

HERMAN MELVILLE

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY PRESS
and
THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY
Evanston and Chicago
1982

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PUBLICATION OF this edition of THE WRITINGS OF HERMAN MELVILLE has been made possible through the financial support of Northwestern University and its Research Committee and The Newberry Library. The research necessary to establish the text was undertaken under the Cooperative Research Program of the Office of Education. Northwestern University Press produced and published this edition and reserves all rights.

Copyright 1982 by Northwestern University Press
and The Newberry Library

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 8281178

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FIRST PAPERBACK PRINTING, 1982
SECOND PAPERBACK PRINTING, 1989
THIRD PAPERBACK PRINTING, 1993

CLOTH EDITION, ISBN 0-8101-0552-7
PAPER EDITION, ISBN 0-8101-0553-5

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TO
His Highness
THE

B IOGRAPHY, in its purer form, confined to the ended lives of the true and brave, may be held the fairest meed of human virtueone given and received in entire disinterestednesssince neither can the biographer hope for acknowledgment from the subject, nor the subject at all avail himself of the biographical distinction conferred.

Israel Potter well merits the present tributea private of Bunker Hill, who for his faithful services was years ago promoted to a still deeper privacy under the ground, with a posthumous pension, in default of any during life, annually paid him by the spring in ever-new mosses and sward.

I am the more encouraged to lay this performance at the feet of your Highness, because, with a change in the grammatical person, it preserves, almost as in a reprint, Israel Potters autobiographical story. Shortly after his return in infirm old age to his native land, a little narrative of his adventures, forlornly published on sleazy gray paper, appeared among the peddlers, written, probably, not by himself, but taken down from his lips by another. But like the crutch-marks of the cripple by the Beautiful Gate, this blurred record is now out of print. From a tattered copy, rescued by the merest chance from the rag-pickers, the present account has been drawn, which, with the exception of some expansions, and additions of historic and personal details, and one or two shiftings of scene, may, perhaps, be not unfitly regarded something in the light of a dilapidated old tombstone retouched.

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Well aware that in your Highness eyes the merit of the story must be in its general fidelity to the main drift of the original narrative, I forbore anywhere to mitigate the hard fortunes of my hero; and particularly towards the end, though sorely tempted, durst not substitute for the allotment of Providence any artistic recompense of poetical justice; so that no one can complain of the gloom of my closing chapters more profoundly than myself.

Such is the work, and such the man, that I have the honor to present to your Highness. That the name here noted should not have appeared in the volumes of Sparks, may or may not be a matter for astonishment; but Israel Potter seems purposely to have waited to make his popular advent under the present exalted patronage, seeing that your Highness, according to the definition above, may, in the loftiest sense, be deemed the Great Biographer: the national commemorator of such of the anonymous privates of June 17, 1775, who may never have received other requital than the solid reward of your granite.

Your Highness will pardon me, if, with the warmest ascriptions on this auspicious occasion, I take the liberty to mingle my hearty congratulations on the recurrence of the anniversary day we celebrate, wishing your Highness (though indeed your Highness be somewhat prematurely gray many returns of the same, and that each of its summers suns may shine as brightly on your brow as each winter snow shall lightly rest on the grave of Israel Potter.

Your Highness

Most devoted and obsequious,

THE EDITOR.

JUNE 17th, 1854.

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