CONTEMPT FOR BIOGRAPHICAL FACTS SERIES--Sample page 2 of Humiliating Errors in Notes by John Bryant in MELVILLE'S EVERMOVING DAWN (1997)

I loved Leon Howard but in the 1990s I would not have cited any page of his biography without correcting it. Leon's temperament required him to try to make Melville normal whenever he could, and any time the facts were not clear and there were two or more possible actions Leon would choose wrong, every time, every time, because he so wanted Melville to be reasonable. After the Northwestern-Newberry Edition of MOBY-DICK was published in 1988 and until the first volume of my biography was published in 1996 any responsible scholar would have used my account of the meeting of Melville and Hawthorne there, in the Historical Note. Possibly MELVILLE'S EVERMOVING DAWN was in press when my first volume came out, but if so the Historical Note ought to have been used. I had the great advantage of Maria Melville's detailed account of the comings and goings of the magical week as well as much other previously unknown information. To have Bryant citing Leon was humiliating indeed.


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