Herman Melville, Redburn His First Voyage, Being the Sailor-boy Confessions and Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman, in the Merchant Service, New York, published by Harper and Brothers in 1855, with five raised bands, gilt titles and gilt devices in six compartments on the spine, gilt ruled covers, marbled endpapers with a gilt fillet border, in a fine binding by Bayntun from Bath, England, the copyright page says the title was entered by Melville at the Clerk's office in the District Court of the Southern District of New York in 1849, so this is not a first edition, and the book is dedicated to Thomas Melville, Herman Melville's younger brother. The list of Contents is seven pages long (v - xi), there are 390 pages of text, with no ads at the end, and all the edges are gilt. This is Melville's fourth book, first published in London in 1849; it is semi-autobiographical and recounts the adventures of a naive youth roaming among coarse sailors and the seedier areas of Liverpool. Melville wrote Redburn in less than ten weeks, and while some scholars describe it as "arguably his funniest work", others call it "the most moving of the author's books before Moby-Dick". The book is 8vo. and measures 7 1/4 x 5 1/4 in. wide, and in beautiful condition, with clean end papers and clean text, by a fine English binder. #6 #1670