Comments on: Lost Sea Serpent Book?

By: greatanarch

greatanarch — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 22:46:48 +0000

The British Library has this too. Interestingly, they hold it as

( Wright American fiction ; v. 1, 1774-1850, no. 282)

which suggests it might be of limited usefulness as source material…

By: greatanarch

greatanarch — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 19:05:49 +0000

Sorry, for synonym read pseudonym! Please edit , Loren.

By: greatanarch

greatanarch — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 19:01:54 +0000

I did a quick search of the New York Public Library site and found:

A romance of the sea serpent, or, The ichthyosaurus. [By Wave, pseud.] Also, a collection of the ancient and modern authorities, with letters from distinguished merchants and men of science.

So the book got published. It also adds:

Batchelder, Eugene, 1822-1878
Cambridge, [Mass.] J. Bartlett, 1849.

so I guess he published it under the Batchelder synonym.

By: charles

charles — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:43:39 +0000

No mystery, it is the compilation of Eugene Batchelder entitled
“A romance of the sea serpent, or, The ichthyosaurus. Also, a collection of the ancient and modern authorities, with letters from distinguished merchants and men of science.”

published by Bartlett in 1849. Available at good national libraries worldwide.

By: Shelley

Shelley — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:08:16 +0000

Whenever you are looking for American or Colonial printed material before 1876, the American Antiquarian Society in Worchester MA is your best bet. They have been around for nearly 125 years and have been trying to gather everything. I have a friend there and I sent her this posting, so perhaps they may have it.

As a retired librarian, I am rather embarrassed to say that as a profession we are very conventional about assigning subject headings to books, so probably the terms that cryptozoologists use are not the same as the Library of Congress Subject Headings. Computers and data bases have made it easier to add multiple access points, though, above and beyond the stodgy LCSH.

By: adamn

adamn — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:35:25 +0000

Hey Loren follow the link to an electronic version of the book. if you are looking for a hard copy, its on Amazon, I believe.
P.S. the book is called A Romance of a Sea Serpent

http://books.google.ca/books?
id=fJEZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=a+romance+of+the+sea+serpent++sea+serpent&source=bl&ots=xG5oElam8L&sig=to93YrnYNv9KO_Pqd2_hoJPNu60&hl=en&ei=ytVWTOq7HoTCsAPMn-WyBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

By: oldphilosopher

oldphilosopher — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:11:33 +0000

Would this not be the same “John Bartlett”, 1820 – 1905, who once owned the Harvard bookstore and who is most famous for Bartlett’s Quotations? If so, Harvard’s special collections might include his other books.