The value of 30 manuscript pages of Herman Melville‘s “Typee” found this year in a musty barn can be appreciated only when it is realized there was only a single page in his handwriting known previously. The New York Public Library, which called the find a miracle, announced this summer that it had paid about $500,000 for the 140-year-old portion of the first draft of Melville‘s first novel. plus a collection of hundreds of letters to, from and about the author. The six-figure price was far beyond what Melville ever pocketed for his works. He died in obscurity in New York City in 1891 and it was not until decades later that his novels attained critical esteem. It seems the troubled author of “Moby Dick” had a penchant for burning what he wrote. Of all the works published in his lifetime, only a single page of “Typee” and a few scraps of “Confidence Man” had survived untill now.

The find was perfectly timed, says Melville scholar Thomas Tanselle..Regard for Melville among critics and general readers has never been higher, he says, and a 15-volume definitive edition of his works by Northwestern University and Chicago’s Newberry Library is half completed. Tanselle notes the discovered material is a bonanza for scholars who can study Melville‘s compositional method by comparing the draft with published versions. The precious pages were also a financial treasure for their finders: an anonymous woman in her 90s, a man rummaging for antiques, and a quick-thinking book dealer.

The story opens with Jack Guerrera, an antique “picker” who occasionally bought bric-a-brac from an elderly woman in Gansevoort, N.Y. Last February, he entered her barn in search of modest saleables and came across two boxes of papers all about a family name Melville. The name rang a bell, and Guerrera began asking for someone who could tell him what the stuff was worth. He was referred to John DeMarco, a Melville student of nearby Saratoga Springs, who runs an antiquarian book business with his wife, Carolyn. Guerrera called the DeMarcos and said he had 20 manuscript pages of “Typee.” An excited but skeptical DeMarco arranged to view the papers the next day and spent a sleepless night boning up on Melville. He purchased all the Melville material from the publicity-shy woman for a small price, and agreed to sell them, with the eventual purchase price to be split evenly among the woman, Guerrera and the DeMarcos. DeMarco later went back to Gansevoort and grabbedthe remaining papers and two trunks of Melville family mementos from the barn. Ten other pages of “Typee” were found The manuscript was transcribed and photocopied and transferred to a bank fault. The DeMarcos then spent more than a month painstakingly pouring over the 19-century script of Melville and more than 400 letters. Among the letters were three written by Melville and four to him, including the only surviving letter Melville ever received from Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of “the Scarlet Letter.” Another 141 letters referred to him. The DeMarcos approached the New York Public Library first because Melville was a New Yorker, the library has an extensive Melville collection, and the DeMarcos did not want to see the material scattered at auction.

“They were shocked at the price,“ DeMarco said of library officials, but they paid it. Don Anderle, the library‘s associate director for special collections, and DeMarco believe an auction of the papers could have brought considerably more, perhaps $1 million. The money was split as agreed among the DeMarcos, Guerrera and the old woman, who refused to read the figure on her check aloud for fear she would have a heart attack.
The DeMarcos also managed to trace how the papers came to be in the barn. Melville‘s mother, Maria Gansevoort Melville, and sisters lived in Gansevoort fort in the latter part of the 19 century. The anonymous woman’s family bought the Melville home and its contents around 1900. The woman moved to another home in Gansevoort about 1930 and the papers wound up in the barn on the new property. Scholars searched the Melville home, but they were too late—the treasure had been moved.

The library is still studying the material and readying it for perusal by Melville scholars. The DeMarcos said their share of the sale would allow them to expand their rare book business. It already has funded a long-desired book -buying trip to England. “It was tax deductible,” a smiling DeMarco said

Published November 1983