Herman Melville, The Marquesas Islands, First Edition 1846. Herman Melville, Narrative Of A Four Months' Residence Among the Natives of A Valley Of The Marquesas Islands, Or, A Peep at Polynesian Life, London, John Murray 1846, the first edition, first state, with "Pomarea" on page 19 line 1 (later corrected to Pomare in the first edition, second state), 3/4 bound, with five raised bands, gilt titles, six compartments, gilt decorations and "The Marquesas Islands, Typee" and "London 1846" on the spine, with blue boards and marbled endpapers and a label on the front paste-down which reads "from the Library of Joseph Currier Willey"; the dedication page is inscribed to Lemuel Shaw, Chief Justice of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, with a chart of the Pacific Ocean and the Marquesas Islands before the first page of text, and the top edge is gilt. This is Melville's first book, and there were only 4048 copies made from the first printing, with 2500 of them in wrappers, and BAL 13652 is on a pencilled note after the front free endpaper. Herman Melville (1819 - 1891) was an American novelist and short-story writer best known for Moby-Dick, which was considered one of the great American novels, and Typee, which was Melville's most popular book during his lifetime. Typee was based on Melville's experiences on the island of Nuku Hiva in the South Pacific in 1842; the title comes from the valley of Taipivai, once known as Taipi, on the Marquesas Islands, a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, and the book made him notorious as the "man who lived among the cannibals." The book is 285 pages long, 8vo. and measures 7 1/8 x 5 in. wide, there are light dampstains on the half-title that run through to the Preface and light rubbing along the edges of the spine, and this is the rare London edition which preceded the American edition of the same year. #5 #1669