Everybody who has ever read Moby-Dick remembers when they first read it. For me, it was the winter of my sophomore year at the University of Toledo. Having yet to declare a major, I enrolled in Professor Hoch's Poe-Hawthorne-Melville seminar with thoughts of majoring in English. Previously, I had read only one Melville work, “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” which Mrs Stutz had assigned us in high school English. For the remainder of that school year, Bartleby's catch phrase – “I would prefer not to” – became a part of our classroom banter, but the story itself did not inspire me or exert a lasting influence on my life.

Moby-Dick did.

I still have the books I bought for Professor Hoch's class, which I took – can it be? – almost thirty years ago. We read Moby-Dick in the Norton critical edition prepared by Harrison Hayford and Hershel Parker. I have since added many other editions of Moby-Dick to my library, but I still cannot bring myself to let go of the first copy I ever owned. Its back is broken, and several pages flutter out every time I open it, but my Norton Moby-Dick continues to occupy an important place in my personal library. This is the book that inspired me to devote my life to the study of literature.

It contains underlined passages and marginal comments in three different colors of ink. Each color dates from a different reading.