This previously unpublished letter, one of 36 to be retrieved since the publication of The Letters of Herman Melville (1960), has earned a place in the New York Public Library's Gansevoort-Lansing Collection. The Malcolm Letter was written by Melville in 1849, on the birth of his son. In a bit of dramatic irony, Melville reflects on the responsibility looming ahead of him as the reader notes the tragedy that Melville cannot possibly foresee- his son...