Fossil Lepadidae was not a huge seller, but it did no worse than another book published in 1851—a strange, mystically rambling parable on whale hunting, called simply The Whale. This was a timely book since whales everywhere were being hunted to extinction, but the critics and buying public failed to warm to it, or even understand it. It was too dense and puzzling, too packed with introspection and hard facts. A month later the book came out in America with a different title: Moby-Dick. It did no better there. The book’s failure was a surprise because the author, thirty-two-year-old Herman
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