Great American reviews of MOBY-DICK

A sampling to shatter the myth of critical neglect and confound your communist English professor

These excerpts from early reviews of Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale are all favorable and all American. Of course Herman Melville's 1851 classic got bad ones, too, on both sides of the Atlantic. However, at last count 83/123 = 67% notices were positive and 23 = 19% mixed; leaving only 17 = 14% pure unadulterated haters.

Truth to tell, in 1851-1852 Moby-Dick wowed America’s best literary critics including George Ripley at the New York Tribune (“wildly imaginative and truly thrilling”); James C. Welling at the Washington, DC National Intelligencer (“depths of pathos that few can fathom…actually Shakespearean”); and Edwin Percy Whipple at Graham’s Magazine (“more than usual glee and gusto…beams with the analogies of a bright and teeming fancy…joyous vigor and elasticity”).

To make a baker's dozen here, I'm adding the editorial promo that appeared in the New York Evening Post on November 29, 1851, introducing a widely reprinted extract from Chapter 61: Stubb Kills a Whale. Hard to imagine now, but in Melville's day you could read a good deal of Moby-Dick in major New York newspapers!

1.

"... ostensibly taken up with whales and whalers, but a vast variety of characters and subjects figure in it, all set off with an artistic effect that irresistibly captivates the attention. The author writes with the gusto of true genius, and it must be a torpid spirit indeed that is not enlivened with the raciness of his humor and the redolence of his imagination."
—New York Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer (November 14, 1851)

2.

"There is life, elasticity, and freedom from restraint, in Mr Melville's manner as a writer; and originality and freshness in his matter. He has no mannerism which holds him down as an imitator of other men; but with tarpulin and roundjacket he plunges into the wide world of adventure, and jots down whatever there comes within the scope of his vision. 'Moby-Dick' is full of spirit and energy, and will match his previous works in the race for popularity."
—Worcester, MA Palladium (November 19, 1851)

3.

The Whale, by Herman Melville, is a beautiful book, just out of the press of the Harpers, a complete exhibition of the art and mystery of whaleology, with graphic pictures of the life and times of whalemen, in which the peculiar tact of Melville appears on every page. —New York Observer (November 20, 1851)

4.

"...a joyous book, full of fine witticisms, and delicate and rapid touches of humor and interest....The invention of the author never seems to flag and his descriptions of scenery are unsurpassed....a singular vein of graphic originality in his style both of words and thoughts...." —Buffalo, NY Daily Courier (November 22, 1851)

5.

"We think Mr. Melville has almost surpassed himself in this last fish story of his. Certainly a better yarn was never spun; nor one the reader is so anxious to find the end of: when found his next regret is that it comes so soon. Melville has the romance of Defoe, the 'tarriness' of Marryatt, the vigor of Bulwer, and in one word produces the pleasantest fictions of the day in his style, which may be termed the comic-Nautical-Sinbadic-style. Long may he write, for he will never lack readers, while imagination and humor are appreciated."
—New York Gazette of the Union (November 22, 1851)

6.

"The narrative is constructed in Herman Melville's best manner....We part with the adventurous philosophical Ishmael, truly thankful that the whale did not get his head, for which we are indebted for this wildly imaginative and truly thrilling story. We think it the best production which has yet come from that seething brain, and in spite of its lawless flights, which put all regular criticism at defiance, it gives us a higher opinion of the author’s originality and power than even the favorite and fragrant first-fruits of his genius, the never-to-be-forgotten Typee.”
—New York Tribune (November 22, 1851)

7.

"In richness and boldness of coloring, whether he is portraying scenery or men, describing a chase for a whale, the revel in the forecastle, or the self-communion of a strong spirit marked and wrenched by fate or circumstance, the author of 'Moby Dick' has scarcely an equal and no superior."
—Syracuse, NY Daily Standard (November 24, 1851)

8.

"The high reputation attained by Mr. Melville as the author of those admirable works, Typee, Omoo, Redburn, Mardi, and White Jacket, is fully sustained in the volume which is the subject of this notice. It purports to give the veritable history of a whaling voyage performed by one Ishmael. Whether this work be viewed in reference to the numerous exciting incidents with which it abounds, to the variety and completeness of the information it conveys as respects the natural history and habits of this leviathan of the deep, or to those bold, vigorous, and life-like delineations of character with which the narrative is relieved, certain it is that Ishmael has presented a most readable work and an intensely interesting history...."
—Washington, DC Union (November 30, 1851)

9.

"... a prose Epic on Whaling. In whatever light it may be viewed, no one can deny it to be the production of a man of genius. The descriptive powers of Mr. Melville are unrivalled...His delineation of character is actually Shakespearean—a quality which is even more prominently evinced in 'Moby Dick' than in any of his antecedent efforts." —Washington, DC National Intelligencer (December 16, 1851)

10.

"In Moby-Dick, as in Typee, the author figures in the first person, but no one will mistake the strangely wild thread of this story for a veritable history. But the reader will sometimes be puzzled to separate fiction from probability, so skilfully has the author blended the common incidents of a whaleman's life, with the creations of his own fancy. In many respects Moby-Dick is the best of the works of the author, as it certainly is the most instructive. We predict for it, with confidence, an extended popularity." —Boston Morning Journal (December 18, 1851)

11.

"... replete with wild adventures and thrilling scenes. Mr. Melville is a master, and a light, in that path of Romance in which he has chose to walk. His descriptions are graphic and complete, and are thoroughly imbued with that grace and charm which is a peculiarity of his genius." —Rochester, NY Daily Democrat (January 21, 1852)

12.

"This volume sparkles with the raciest qualities of the author's voluble and brilliant mind, and whatever may be its reception among old salts, it will be sure of success with the reading public generally. It has passages of description and narration equal to the best that Melville has written, and its rhetoric revels and riots in scenes of nautical adventure with more than usual glee and gusto."
—Graham’s Magazine (February 1852)

13.

"Mr. Herman Melville, in his new sea-story, describes a marvellous chase by a whaling monomaniac after the "Moby Dick," the fabulous leviathan of the sailors, during which he probably let us into the realities of actual whaling as minutely and faithfully as any sea-author has ever done. We shall give a couple of passages, hoping they will put the reader on the look-out for the book itself...."

—New York Evening Post (November 29, 1851)