Politics and Poetics

IN AUGUST i866 Harper and Brothers published Herman Melville's first volume of poetry, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War, in an edition of I,260 copies. On December 7, the publisher reported to that have been given to Editors, say in round numbers, 300.' However, only eleven reviews have been identified as resulting from the distribution of close to one quarter of the publishing run.2 Now two additional reviews, in the New York Times and The Round Table, a New York weekly, have come to light.' Each of these-but in different ways-helps explain the book's disappointing sales. On February 13, i868, Harper's reported to that only 486 copies had been sold, and since he had guaranteed publication expenses there was a deficit of $338.93 in his account.4 The poor sales of this topical volume came at a time when, as Robert Penn Warren has reminded us, Melville had been desperately in need of money as well as appreciation.' The review in the New York Times is one of the most sympathetic that the book would receive, and with good reason. It appeared on August 27, i866, only eleven days after the paper's great editor, Henry Raymond, a Member of Congress and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Union Party, had urged in an eloquent speech to the Party's convention in Philadelphia that it

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