Oak Knoll

First edition thus, limited to 1000 copies printed by the Lakeside Press under the supervision of William A. Kittredge (The Artist and the Book no.140; Bolton p.94; Blumenthal, The Printed Book in America, plate 48). Lacking the publisher's acetate jackets. Spines with a hint of fading, very minor rubbing to volume one and two, slight offsetting of the engravings to the opposite pages, else a fine set of one of the finest productions produced by The Lakeside Press.

One of the most notable of Kent's illustrated books and a classic interpretation of Melville's story. Kent had complete creative control over his edition and "spent five years researching and designing his project, during which time he discovered many of the 19th-century textual and visual sources that had influenced Melville" (Abrams, p. 377). The three-volume set was also one of the four titles produced by R. R. Donnelley and Sons' Lakeside Press under the "Four American Books" campaign, with the other three being Edgar Allan Poe's Tales , Henry David Thoreau's Walden , and Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast. It was Moby Dick, however, that was hailed as among the great American illustrated books of the century, and it is also credited with reviving public interest in a sublime but difficult novel.

The book contains 280 striking wood cuts by Kent which are reproduced to illustrate Melville's classic nineteenth century whaling novel. Beautiful, silver-stamped cover and spine design by Kent. Epilogue at rear.

"The most lasting contribution of the undertaking, though, was Kent's Moby Dick. Still regarded as the definitive illustrated edition of this American Classic, it positioned Chicago as a major center in the history of American book illustration, design, and production" (Coventry, "Four American Books Campaign," Chicago by the Book, p.121).