Sea Monsters Unmasked and Sea Fables Explained by Henry Lee (1883)

Summary

For Lee, the accounts of sailors — “Jolly Jack Tars” — can be explained by the natural superstition he assumes sailors possess: “To the best of his belief, he has told the truth. He has seen some living being which looked wonderfully human, and his imagination, aided by an inherited superstition, has supplied the rest.” The imagination of one particular sailor quoted by Lee catches the eye of the twenty-first century reader, however; tucked away on page 74 of Sea Monsters Unmasked, to aid the description of a whale’s waterspout, Lee quotes from “the remarkable” novel by a “Mr Herman Melville”. The title Lee gives of the book is not Moby-Dick, but The Whale — as it was called on its publication in Britain in October 1851 (it was retitled for its publication in the United States a month later). Lee’s praise also mirrors how contemporary British critics were more favourably inclined to the book than their American counterparts (notoriously) were. It is notable that Lee, despite his views on sailors’ tendency to embellish, praises Melville’s accuracy based on experience; although Melville is “not a naturalist”, he has “served before the mast in a sperm-whaler and borne his part in all the hardships and dangers of the chase”.