This is a finely produced little miniature book containing a printing of "A Thought on Book-Binding" by Herman Melville, first published in the New York Literary World, March 16, 1850. Around the time he is writing Moby-Dick and befriending Hawthorne. It shows his comedic, and at the same time philosophical, style, much in the vein of Carlyle, who he also had read. This is an exquisite work of art, just 3″ × 2″ × ¼″ in size, with a black leather-like cover, and gold-stamped title on the front cover. My version, one of 350 copies, in encased in a sumptuous, specially designed and fitting clamshell box with gray and black cloth cover and a paper title on the spine. ( )