| In writing this book, I have been constantly aware of my indebtedness to Leon Howard and Jay Leyda, whose works on Melville have provided guiding ideas and valuable material. I did much of my research in Howard's Herman Melville: A Biography and Leyda's monumental The Melville Log: A Documentary Life of Herman Melville 18191891. I am indebted also to works by Henry Nash Smith, Harrison Hayford, Merton M. Sealts, Jr., and many others as well. This book has benefited also from the advice and encouragement of several scholars who were kind enough to read the manuscript and offer suggestions. I wish to thank Allan Emery and T. Walter Herbert, Jr., who pointed out glaring faults in the first draft, and my friend and colleague Kenneth G. Johnston, who provided welcome insights in his reading of a late draft. William B. Dillingham, whom I have never met, graciously read the first and last drafts, pointed out weaknesses in both, and offered encouragement and suggestions at other stages. Readers for the University of Iowa Press have made many useful recommendations for improving the manuscript, the shortcomings of which reflect my own. |
| I wish to thank also various individuals at Kansas State University for their interest and assistance: William L. Stamey, former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Henry J. Donaghy, former Head of the English Department, for a sabbatical leave during which I wrote the first draft; Robert F. Kruh, former dean of the Graduate College and the Bureau of General Research, for travel grants; and the librarians in Farrell Library, particularly Katherine Coleman and Cynthia Logan of the interlibrary loan department, for much-needed assistance in obtaining copies of rare mid-nineteenth-century works. I am grateful also for the assistance of librarians in the New York Public Library, Houghton and Widener libraries at Harvard, New-York Historical Society, National Archives, Massachusetts Historical Society, Municipal Archives, New York City, Library, New York Academy of Medicine, Berkshire Anthenaeum, Pennsylvania State Archives, Princeton University Library, Albany Public Library, Medical Archives, the New York |
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