2 pages + integral stampless address leaf. 27x21 cm. (10¾x8¼").
Letter written to Theodore F. McCurdy, c/o N. Berry, Paris, France, from his father in New York. About 14 months before the letter was written, Herman Melville, then 31 yeas old, had sailed for Europe to search for a British publisher. At the start of the 25-day journey, Melville feared that he would have to share a cabin with Theodore McCurdy, 21 year-old law student, son of a rich New York merchant (and cousin of the ship’s Captain) whom Melville described as "a lisping youth of genteel capacity…quite disposed to be sociable". Happily told that he would have a stateroom to himself, Melville spent the weeks on board talking philosophy with a Professor of Languages and a Doctor, joined in more sociable hours by McCurdy, who freely paid for the champagne and brandy. Arrived in London, the quartet spent happy evenings together until the Doctor and McCurdy left for a trip to Egypt and Jerusalem. Melville was back in New York in February 1850 to see the publication of White-Jacket - and to begin work on the whaling novel which was to be his masterpiece. When this letter was written by the senior McCurdy to his son, continuing the “grand tour” in Paris, Melville had nearly finished Moby Dick and had probably forgotten all about the tall, sickly, rich youth with whom he had crossed the Atlantic – notwithstanding a recent novel in which “Teddy” McCurdy appears as Melville’s shipboard gay lover. The letter reads in part, “..Uncle Charles…writes that Mr. Webster says he shall have his instructions immediately and may be off as soon as he pleases. He also says that Austria has complained in high terms of our government but that 'he does not intend to eat humble pie'... Your French letter to sister was rather a puzzle…after some considerable deciphering… You must write oftener and a great deal more in detail. You doubtless will say 'what new can I write about Paris?' We say, Your own experience of it, in all its particulars….” Other than Melville’s diary of the trip, little is known about McCurdy or the colorful uncle mentioned in this letter, who was apparently working for Secretary of State Daniel Webster in countering Austrian diplomatic threats to retaliate for American support of the unsuccessful Hungarian revolution against Austrian rule.