2 volumes, 8vo. (Some pale spotting). Original publisher’s green blind-stamped cloth, gilt-lettered on spine, yellow coated endpapers (a touch of wear to spine ends and corners); half morocco folding case. Provenance: G. J. Ball (early signatures, Erie, Pennsylvania). 

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, published approximately one month after the English edition. "Mardi was originally intended as a factual South Seas adventure story....inspired by the many attacks upon the veracity of Typee and Omoo. As the story progressed, however, he began to slide increasingly into satire and metaphysical speculation... The resulting book revealed the first blossoming of the intellectual growth and spiritual searching that would shape Melville's later works" (Life and Works of Herman Melville). The present copy has the blind-stamped rule about 1/8” from the tops of spines (no priority established). BAL 13658. A BRIGHT COPY.