New Jersey Herald - Some ‘Moby Dick' pieces are pursued by collectors:
"Kent's three-volume set of "Moby Dick" was published in 1930. It was filled with Kent's haunting and dramatic black-and-white drawings and the edition sold out almost immediately. Random House issued a trade edition, also immensely popular. "Moby Dick" reportedly was a rather obscure book until the 1920s, but the new edition with Kent's illustrations helped to bring the work to the attention of the American reading public."
Utterly fascinating that there are collectors of this. What is most fascinating is the understanding that the novel was "obscure," mostly until this book with illustrations that probably made it friendlier to read.
These drawings really do help the reader to see the adventure of the book. These are reminiscent of the great drawings in early additions of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (See some of those here: http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Twa2Huc.html).
You wonder if Kent had decided to illustrate Henry Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast" like the article says if we would be talking more about Dana than Melville today.
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