Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life during a Four Months' Residence in the Valley of the Marquesas with Notices of the French Occupation of Tahiti and the Provisional Cession of the Sandwich Islands to Lord Paulet

325 pages. [ xv, 166, [4], [167]. 18 x 12 cm. Two parts in one. With both half-titles and frontispiece map. The first American edition of Herman Melville's first novel, in an early binding. BAL 13653. (Binding Variant A, Cloth [no priority]). Dedication to Lemuel Shaw. The author based his first work on the month he spent living among the people in the Marquesas, where he found himself after deserting the whaling ship Achsunet in 184. Lacks publisher catalogue. A few signatures a bit pulled but holding, ink signatures to half-titles, a few short tears, some stray spotting mostly in the margins. Early three-quarter black morocco over marbled boards, the spine gilt lettered and with gilt rules, housed in a chemise and in a morocco-backed slipcase also lettered in gilt. Very good.