Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Melville Herman. Pierre; or, The Ambiguities. Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York, 1852.
Price: US$1500.00 + shipping
Condition: Fair
Description: Brown cloth. Spine is loose on one side. Foxing. 495 pages.
Seller: Ann Open Book, Lansing, MI, U.S.A.
Melville, Herman. Pierre: Or, The Ambiguities. Harper & Borthers, Publishers, New York, 1852.
Price: US$3250.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: FIRST EDITION. Publishers orginal purple cloth with terra cotta-coated endpapers. The cloth is mostly faded to tan (an unavoidable feature of the purple dye used in the period) and the gilt is somewhat dulled. Scattered foxing, mostly light, a little heavier on the first and last few pages. The bottom fifth of the front free endpaper has been torn away. A Very Good copy with minimal wear, and uncommon thus. BAL 13666.
Seller: Clarel Rare Books, Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.
Melville, Herman. Pierre; or, The Ambiguities. Harper & Brothers, New York, 1852.
Price: US$3500.00 + shipping
Description: First Edition. 1 vols. 8vo. A large part of the first edition was destroyed in the fire at Harper's in 1853. BAL 13666 Original slate blind-stamped cloth, uneven browning, soiling to rear board, gilt-lettered on spine (darkened), splits along joints and spine tips; Henry McBride booklabel, usual spotting to front and end matter
Seller: James Cummins Bookseller, ABAA, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$3750.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Hardcover. Brown cloth faded towards gray on the boards. Faded gold lettering on the spine and a couple small chips to the spine, 495 pages. Text block good and tight. Pages have a smattering of foxing, but corners are square and whites are white. Overall good condition (would be very good but for the fading to the covers) of a rare title. Pierre was published while people were still trying to figure out what to make of Moby Dick & anticipated by an audience who enjoyed his early non-fiction and semi-non-fiction travelogues (like Typee and Omoo). Sadly, people did know what to make of Pierre; they disliked it. How rare is this? I have not been able to determine how many copies Harper & Brother printed, but it is well known that nearly 500 copies burned in a fire in 1853 -- and just over 100 survived the blaze. If we assume that the first edition print run for this title was in keeping with the rest of his Harper's imprints, it seems safe to estimate between 1,000 and 1,500 copies (perhaps as few as 750). It is commonly reported that it was poorly received -- one year after it was published there were still nearly 600 copies in the Harper's warehouse, after all. If the print run were large (1,250+), would selling half of them be considered a terrible failure? Therefore it was probably a small print run (750-1000 copies). That makes this one of (likely) fewer than 500 copies in existence. Please email with questions or to request photos.
Seller: Riverby Books, Fredericksburg, VA, U.S.A.
Melville, Herman. Pierre; or, the Ambiguities. Harper & Brothers, New York, 1852.
Price: US$3800.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First edition, first printing. Bound in publisher's original purple/gray cloth decorated in blind and spine stamped in silver. Near Fine with light lean and sunning to spine, neat restoration to cloth at head, rubbing to joints. Previous owner name partially abraded from title page, leaving several small holes. Pages toned and sporadically foxed throughout, though heavier at preliminary and terminal pages. One of Melville's scarcest titles, which was published shortly after Moby Dick.
Seller: Burnside Rare Books, ABAA, Portland, OR, U.S.A.