SOURCE: " 'D. D.' Revealed?," in Melville Society Extracts, Vol. LXXXVI, September, 1991, pp. 10-11.

In the following essay, Ra 'ad argues for identifying the "D.D. "found in Melville's correspondence to Evert Duyckinck with Opie 's Detraction Displayed because (among other things) Opie 's work represented a disappearing type of social commentary on contemporary morals.

The May 1990 issue of Extracts (#80) contained a small trove of new Melville letters and notes. Among them is an undated note in which Herman Melville thanks Evert Duyckinck for helping "to procure" a book Melville refers to as "D.D." The title is not spelled out—presumably because Melville attached the note to the copy of "D.D." he was returning to Duyckinck:

By-the-bye—, you should read, or at least look over D.D. It is well worth any one's reading. It is the last leaf out of the Omnium Gatherum of miscellaneous...