8vo. 7pp. advertisements at end. (Spotting and marginal browning.) Original brown blind-stamped cloth, gilt lettered spine (rebacked preserving original endpapers, portions of original spine laid down, some pale spotting); folding case.

FIRST EDITION. With the exception of "The Piazza," all of the short stories in The Piazza Tales had previously appeared in Putnam's Monthly between 1853-1855, the most notable among them being "Bartleby the Scrivener," now a classic of American short fiction. The Piazza Tales did little to rescue Melville from his slide into obscurity. It is unlikely that he earned any royalties from the publication of this book, which likely helped drive its American publisher out of business. BAL 13669.