Moby Dick Or The Whale. Illustrated by Rockwell Kent. London: Cassell & Co., 1930. First UK Edition. Pp, 822. Black cloth boards, lettered in gilt, a few minor crease marks to top right corner, otherwise a fine bright copy.

Melville’s great book was not well received when published in 1851, and languished in relative obscurity through the rest of the 19th century. It was this particular edition, however, with its deeply inspired illustrations by Rockwell Kent, which revived Moby Dick and cemented the book’s status as an American classic.

The Irish Connection –American landscape artist & illustrator Rockwell Kent (1882 – 1971) spent a year living in a small house belonging to Dan and Rose Mac a’Bhaird in Gleann Locha, a remote townland in South-west Donegal. He produced some of his finest work during this brief stay, including Irish Coast, Shipwreck, Coast of Ireland and Dan Ward’s Stack. His most famous Gleann Locha painting is Annie McGinley, a study of a local woman sunbathing near a remote costal area known as ‘An Port.’