In September, Christie's sold a large collection of books and letters by Herman Melville and his family, which belonged to the American bookseller William Reese (William Sherman Reese). The total value of all lots was $2.8 million. Individual volumes and collections of books published in the century before last were put up for sale, only a small part was released in the 20th century, mainly editions illustrated by the artist Rockwell Kent.
True, the most expensive lot was not the work of the author of "Moby Dick", but "The Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri with Melville's comments. The writer underlined and ticked off important passages, entered one or more words somewhere, and filled the back flyleaf with notes that were later erased. Initially, the book was estimated at 100-150 thousand dollars, as a result, the amount reached 441 thousand dollars.
For 327 thousand dollars, a rare copy of "The Whale" (The Whale) - that was the name of the London edition of "Moby Dick" - went under the hammer. The book was published in 1853 and is rarer than the very first three-volume edition of the novel. At that time, the book did not sell well, and the publisher Richard Bentley refused further cooperation with the author, sending unsold copies of the circulation to the warehouse.
William Reese (1955–2018) was an expert in secondhand books. While at Yale University, he worked for Frontier Americana, a rare book dealer. The bibliophile founded his own company, the William Reese Company, which serves rare book collectors: specialists help clients, including private and public institutions, in the acquisition of rare books and the formation of libraries. Reese began collecting the Herman Melville collection in 1986. The rapidly expanding collection included several extremely valuable first editions of Moby Dick and other works now in their new owners.
