# Is "Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex, of Nantucket" by Owen Chase a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex, of Nantucket by Owen Chase (W. B. Gilley, 1821) is identified by: The true first edition is a slim volume of 128 pages in 12mo, published by W.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The true first edition is a slim volume of 128 pages in 12mo, published by W. B. Gilley at 92 Broadway, New York, only months after Chase's rescue and return to Nantucket, and it is standardly cited in the trade under Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana number 12189
- The printed text includes an errata note asking readers to excuse mistakes 'which have resulted from the haste in transcribing the original narrative.' Herman Melville acquired and heavily annotated a copy of this exact narrative shortly before he began writing Moby-Dick, cementing the book's importance as a documentary source for that novel's climax
- Publisher imprint reads W. B. Gilley
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Owen Chase |
| Publisher | W. B. Gilley |
| Year | 1821 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The true first edition is a slim volume of 128 pages in 12mo, published by W. B. Gilley at 92 Broadway, New York, only months after Chase's… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
The true first edition is a slim volume of 128 pages in 12mo, published by W. B. Gilley at 92 Broadway, New York, only months after Chase's rescue and return to Nantucket, and it is standardly cited in the trade under Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana number 12189. The printed text includes an errata note asking readers to excuse mistakes 'which have resulted from the haste in transcribing the original narrative.' Herman Melville acquired and heavily annotated a copy of this exact narrative shortly before he began writing Moby-Dick, cementing the book's importance as a documentary source for that novel's climax.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Modern editions sometimes print Chase's 1821 text together with supplementary survivor accounts and transcriptions of Melville's own marginal notes on the narrative; that added apparatus is modern editorial material and does not appear in the 1821 first edition.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex, of Nantucket* by Owen Chase a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/narrative-of-the-most-extraordinary-and-distressing-shipwrec
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.