MELVILLE, HERMAN (inscr.); PALMER, J. W.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Golden Dagon; or, Up and Down the Irrawaddi. First edition, a gift from Herman Melville to his younger brother Allan, inscribed on the front free endpaper, "Allan Melville from Herman Melville Oct. 11th, 1856". Melville inscribed the book the day he sailed for Europe on the steamer Glasgow, embarking on his six-month Grand Tour.Melville likely acquired Palmer's travelogue directly from the publishers, Dix, Edwards & Co., when he visited their offices with his brother on 9 October to negotiate the contract for his satirical novel The Confidence Man. Though it seems Melville gave this copy to his brother before he could read it himself, Palmer sent the author another copy in 1889. Melville wrote to thank him on 23 March: "Tonight my wife will conclude the reading to me of Up & Down the Irrawaddy. Those stirring adventures so orientally novel make the book unique to me, and have interested me more than any volume I have read for a long time. As to that 'exuberance' you allege against the work, it is exuberance of that prime staple - vitality."A physician by training, Palmer (1825-1906) briefly practised medicine in San Francisco and Honolulu, before joining the crew of the Phlegeton as the ship's surgeon, "giving Palmer the distinction of being the only American to have ever held a commission in the East India Company navy" (Howgego). He served under the British in the second Burmese war, visiting China, India, and Burma, before returning to the US and settling in Baltimore.

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