Item #3737 Journal of a Whaling Voyage on Board Ship Dauphin, of Nantucket. Charles Murphey, Murphey.
Journal of a Whaling Voyage on Board Ship Dauphin, of Nantucket.
Journal of a Whaling Voyage on Board Ship Dauphin, of Nantucket.
Journal of a Whaling Voyage on Board Ship Dauphin, of Nantucket.
Journal of a Whaling Voyage on Board Ship Dauphin, of Nantucket.
Journal of a Whaling Voyage on Board Ship Dauphin, of Nantucket.
Journal of a Whaling Voyage on Board Ship Dauphin, of Nantucket.

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Journal of a Whaling Voyage on Board Ship Dauphin, of Nantucket.

Mattapoisett, Mass.: Atlantic Publishing Company: 1877. 8vo, original black cloth covers and closely matching renewed spine. a.e.g. [1–3] + 4–39 pp., [4] pp. of advertisements.

First edition of 3rd mate Charles Murphey's account of his three year voyage aboard the whaling ship Dauphin of Nantucket and the rescue of two survivors of the ship Essex disaster. This issue includes the five plates lacking in some copies.

Especially notable in this rhymed narrative is the Dauphin's rescue of Captain Pollard and Charles Ramsdell following the disastrous voyage of the Essex, which was destroyed by a whale shortly after the Dauphin set sail in September of 1820 and subsequently became Melville's inspiration for Moby Dick. Two of the plates relate to the Essex—one illustrating its destruction and the other showing Pollard and Ramsdell when rescued by the Dauphin, adrift in a boat.

Murphey describes the scenes and rhythms of life at sea and in port, recounting the long intervals of waiting or bad weather, the excitement of successful whale chases and the disappointment of failed ones, and, importantly to the author and crew, those places where girls were present and "virtue" was not. The Dauphin visited Maui, Hawaii, and Valparaiso, among other locations.

REFERENCES: Forster, The South Sea Whaler, 71; Heffernan, Stove by a Whale, pp. 93–95.

CONDITION: Very good.

Item #3737

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