Talk:Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex

Scan
Scan at Harvard. --Xover (talk) 18:16, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I saw that and thought it was a manuscript edition. Good catch. … Any chance you can use your magic scripts to get a DJVU out of it? —Beleg Tâl (talk) 18:19, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * NVM I found a link to request a PDF —Beleg Tâl (talk) 18:20, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, I believe this may be Melville's own copy of the book. Which is a nice touch. :) --Xover (talk) 18:26, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The Nantucket Historical Association copy seems to be in Adam Matthew: https://www.cap.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Details/Narrative-of-the-Most-Extraordinary-and-Distressing-Shipwreck-of-the-Whale-ship-Essex-of-Nantucket-/NHA_RB_NAN_639_28_C38_C_3 MarkLSteadman (talk) 09:28, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Nature and completeness of this work
The scan is not of a single complete work, rather it is of a bound bundle of historical artefacts which seem to have belonged to Herman Melville and which relate to his best known work, Moby Dick. The first part consists of manuscript notes, mostly about 'Owen Chase's' published work, casting doubt on his authorship and other details of the story. The main part consists of an copy of Owen Chase's published account of the wrecking of the ship. There seems to be an expectation on the part of the person who provided the scan that this should be repaired. However, there is a manuscript letter in which the sender apologises for providing a 'mutilated copy' of the work to Melville, on account of it being the only one he could obtain. The rest of the scan consists of further manuscript notes and a newspaper article. Consequently, the scan appears to be a complete one of the bound contents and ought not to be 'repaired' by having the missing pages of the printed work inserted. I have therefore changed the status on the Index page to reflect this.As it is not usually the case that manuscript is transcribed, nor knowingly incomplete works provided, I would suggest that this scan should be replaced with a complete scan of the printed account only, if one can be found. Chrisguise (talk) 08:44, 6 August 2023 (UTC)