Two Men Convicted In Pizza Shop Arson That Resulted In The Death Of Philadelphia Firefighter Lt. Sean Williamson

 The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia released the below information:

PHILADELPHIA – United States Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero announced that Al-Ashraf Khalil, 31, and Isaam Jaghama, 31, both of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, were convicted today at trial in the June 18, 2022, arson fire at a Fairhill pizza shop, which resulted in the death of Philadelphia Fire Department Lieutenant Sean Williamson and injuries to five other first responders inside the building when it collapsed.

A federal jury convicted the defendants on one count each of conspiracy to commit malicious damage by means of fire of a building used in interstate commerce, and one count each of malicious damage by means of fire of a building used in interstate commerce. Khalil was also found guilty of one count of wire fraud, and one count of using fire in furtherance of the commission of that wire fraud.

Khalil was the owner of the property at 300 West Indiana Avenue, which housed both apartments and the pizza shop. As proven at trial, in the early hours of June 18, 2022, he and Jaghama set a fire inside the building so that Khalil could profit by filing an insurance claim related to the fire. The day of the fire, Khalil signed paperwork authorizing an insurance adjuster to file a more than $400,000 insurance claim on his behalf.

At sentencing, Khalil faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 17 years in prison and a maximum possible sentence of life in prison. Jaghama faces a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years in prison and a maximum possible sentence of life in prison.

“This fire wasn’t an accident or act of God,” said U.S. Attorney Romero. “But for these defendants, it never would have started, the building would still stand, and Lt. Williamson would still be with his family — a wholly preventable tragedy, sparked by greed. While today’s convictions can never make up for such an immeasurable loss, they ensure a measure of justice for Lt. Williamson, the Williamson family, and the dedicated first responders of the Philadelphia Fire Department. They also reinforce that anyone reckless enough to commit arson will be held to account for their actions.”

“Arson is a dangerous deadly crime,” said Eric DeGree, Special Agent in Charge of the ATF Philadelphia Field Office. “In this case two families with children had to run for their lives, four responders were buried alive, and a firefighter was killed. Bringing together the resources of the ATF Philadelphia Arson & Explosives Task Force and the ATF National Response Team, the Philadelphia Fire Department, the Philadelphia Fire Marshal’s Office, the Philadelphia Police Department, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, we brought these arsonists to justice, and they now face up to life in federal prison. ATF is committed to protecting our communities from dangerous criminals and will continue to partner to prevent and prosecute crimes like this.”

“The Philadelphia Fire Department will forever mourn the loss of Lieutenant Sean Williamson. We thank the United States Attorney and Justice Department for their diligence in bringing these men to justice. Our fervent hope is that this verdict will bring even a small amount of closure to Lt. Williamson’s family, both at home and in the PFD,” said Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Jeffrey Thompson.

This case was investigated by ATF Philadelphia and the ATF’s National Response Team, the Philadelphia Fire Department, the Philadelphia Fire Marshal’s Office, and the Philadelphia Police Department, with significant assistance provided by the Philadelphia Department of Licenses & Inspections. Special thanks are given to the United States Marshals Service for their assistance in the international apprehension of Al-Ashraf Khalil. 

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Amanda R. Reinitz and Michael Miller.

Drug Addicts Are More To Be Pitied Than Censured

Broad & Liberty published my piece on drug addicts.

You can read the piece via the below link or the below text:

Paul Davis: Drug addicts are more to be pitied than censured

While recently speaking to a friend, a retired Philadelphia detective who supported President Trump in the election, he repeated something that struck a chord with me. 

The detective, a genuine tough guy who worked the streets of Kensington for a good part of his career, had taken me on a couple of “ride-alongs” through Kensington’s open-air drug market. 

“The drug addicts are lost souls due to their addiction, and although I think the police should crack down on the street-gang drug dealers, the addicts should be treated as victims,” the retired detective told me. “They are, after all, someone’s father, mother, sister, son or daughter.” 

I agreed. Damn the drug dealers, pity the drug users. I thought of the William B. Gray poem, She is More to Pitied Than Censured. 

She is more to be pitied than censured,
She is more to be helped than despised,
She is only a lassie who ventured
On life’s stormy path ill-advised.
Do not scorn her with words fierce and bitter,
Do not laugh at her shame and downfall;
For a moment just stop and consider
That a man was the cause of it all.

I also thought back to the late 1960s and early 1970’s when heroin swept through South Philly and the country like an epidemic. I saw so many young men and some young women fall victim to heroin addiction, and so many who died due to drug overdoses.  

I was no angel, and I ran with a rough teenage crew in South Philly during the ’60s. Thankfully, I joined the Navy in 1970 when I was 17. While I was serving on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War, another war was waging in my old neighborhood. And it appeared that heroin was winning the war.

When I returned home, I discovered that many of my childhood friends had become heroin junkies. It was as if they sold their soul to the drug and lost their humanity. They were mere shells of their former selves. 

I occasionally think of my late friend Steve. He was a good-looking young guy, and he was popular with the girls and the guys all liked him. He came from a well-to-do family and his father bought him a brand-new car when he graduated from high school.

Unlike many of my crowd, including me, Steve graduated from high school with good grades. He worked at his father’s South Philly store, and he always had ready cash in his pocket. Like the rest of the crowd, he drank beer and smoked pot in the late 1960s. He later took pills and graduated to heroin when I was in the Navy. 

Steve married a local girl and had a son while I was in Southeast Asia. When I came home, he told me that he was “shooting” heroin, meaning he used a needle to mainline the drug straight to his vein to achieve the maximum high. I tried to talk him out of it. 

At this point, he was not yet a full-blown junkie, and he was able to function, working in the store and living with his mother and father. He also maintained his wicked sense of humor. He asked me to help him deliver a set of drums to his ex-wife’s parent’s house, where she and his five-year-old son were living.

When we deposited the drum set, his ex-wife screamed at him and said their son was only five, so why did he buy drums? Steve handed the drumsticks to his son and the youngster began banging on the drums, much to the alarm of his ex-wife and her elderly parents. 

Steve laughed loudly in the car as we were leaving, and I must admit that I laughed as well. “I hope my son bangs on the drums day and night and drives them crazy!”

Months later, Steve became a full-blown junkie, and his father fired him and threw him out of the house after Steve stole money from the store and the house to support his growing drug addiction. His father later told me that this was the hardest thing he had ever done, and his wife, Steve’s mother, cried every night. 

The last time I saw Steve he looked like a zombie. He was thin and his face was skeletal. Yet he was wearing a fine suit. I asked him where he was going, and he replied that he was going to his lawyer’s office.

“If he doesn’t settle my case today, I’m going to throw him out the window.”

The threat must have worked, because Steve received a good settlement. I heard from his father that Steve had called his ex-wife and told her to get their son ready as he was taking him to Disneyland. She objected and said she was calling her lawyer. Steve then purchased a huge amount of heroin and overdosed in a motel room and died. His canvas bag with his cash settlement was missing. His father believed that someone gave his son a “hotshot” and killed him to get his money. We will never know. 

Steve, like so many drug addicts in those days as well as today, had their potential for a good life taken away. The drugs also robbed their families. One’s drug addiction also devastates the parents, the spouse, and their offspring.

The police need to round up the local drug pushers and stop their product from coming across the southern border from Mexico and other countries. The ready and plentiful drugs available on the street are an unstoppable lure to people like my late friend Steve and the many other drug addicts who fall victim to drug addiction. 

Drug addicts are more to be pitied than censured. 

Paul Davis, a Philadelphia writer and frequent contributor to Broad + Liberty, also contributes to Counterterrorism magazine and writes the “On Crime” column for the Washington Times. He can be reached at pauldavisoncrime.com. 

California Man Sentenced For Acting As An Illegal Agent Of The People’s Republic Of China Government And Bribery

The U.S. Justice Department released the below information:

John Chen, 71, of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Los Angeles, was sentenced today to 20 months in prison for acting as unregistered agents of the PRC and bribing an IRS agent in connection with a plot to target U.S.-based practitioners of Falun Gong — a spiritual practice banned in the PRC.

According to court documents, from at least approximately January 2023 to May 2023, Chen and co-defendant Lin Feng, 44, a PRC citizen and resident of Los Angeles, California, worked inside the United States at the direction of the PRC government, including an identified PRC government official PRC Official-1, to further the PRC government’s campaign to repress and harass Falun Gong practitioners. The PRC government has designated the Falun Gong as one of the “Five Poisons,” or one of the top five threats to its rule. In China, Falun Gong adherents face a range of repressive and punitive measures from the PRC government, including imprisonment.

As part of the PRC's campaign against the Falun Gong, Chen and Feng engaged in a PRC government-directed scheme to manipulate the IRS’ Whistleblower Program in an effort to strip the tax-exempt status of an entity run and maintained by Falun Gong practitioners, the Shen Yun Performing Arts Center. After Chen filed a defective whistleblower complaint with the IRS (the Chen Whistleblower Complaint), Chen and Feng paid $5,000 in cash bribes and promised to pay substantially more to a purported IRS agent (Agent-1) who was, in fact, an undercover officer, in exchange for Agent-1’s assistance in advancing the complaint. Neither Chen nor Feng notified the Attorney General that they were acting as agents of the PRC in the United States.

In the course of the scheme, Chen, on a recorded call, explicitly noted that the purpose of paying these bribes, which were directed and funded by the PRC, was to carry out the PRC government’s aim of “toppl[ing] . . . the Falun Gong.” During a call intercepted pursuant to a judicially authorized wiretap, Chen and Feng discussed receiving “direction” on the bribery scheme from PRC Official-1, deleting instructions received from PRC Official-1 in order to evade detection, and “alert[ing]” and “sound[ing] the alarm” to PRC Official-1 if Chen and Feng’s meetings to bribe Agent-1 did not go as planned. Chen and Feng also discussed that PRC Official-1 was the PRC government official “in charge” of the bribery scheme targeting the Falun Gong.

As part of this scheme, Chen and Feng met with Agent-1 in Newburgh, New York, on May 14, 2023. During the meeting, Chen gave Agent-1 a $1,000 cash bribe as an initial, partial bribe payment. Chen further offered to pay Agent-1 a total of $50,000 for opening an audit on the Shen Yun Performing Arts Center, as well as 60% of any whistleblower award from the IRS if the Chen Whistleblower Complaint were successful. On May 18, 2023, Feng paid Agent-1 a $4,000 cash bribe at John F. Kennedy International Airport as an additional partial bribe payment in furtherance of the scheme.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York, and Executive Assistant Director Robert R. Wells of the FBI’s National Security Branch made the announcement.

In addition to the prison term, Chen was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to forfeit $50,000. Feng was sentenced on Sept. 26, to a time-served sentence of 16 months in prison.

The FBI and Office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Qais Ghafary, Michael D. Lockard, and Kathryn Wheelock for the Southern District of New York and Trial Attorney Christina Clark of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section prosecuted the case.

RIP Vic Flick, The Guiter Player Who Performed The James Bond Theme

The Spy Command, a blog about James Bond and other cinematic spies, reports that Vic Flick, the electric guitar player who performed on the original James Bond Theme in Dr. No, had died.    

Vic Flick, who played electric guitar on the original 1962 recording of the James Bond Theme died this month, Yahoo! Movies said, citing a Facebook post by his son Kevin. He was 87.

 

The theme, which debuted in Dr. No, was written by Monty Norman and arranged by John Barry. Norman earned royalties for the theme. Barry’s work on Dr. No led to 11 scoring assignments on Bond films. He became a famous movie composer who won five Oscars (none for his Bond work).

 

You can read the rest of the piece and watch Vic Flick perform the James Bond Theme via the below link:

Vic Flick, guitarist, dies at 87 | The Spy Command 

 

You can also watch the Dr. No theme song via the below link:

   Bing Videos 

My Crime Fiction: 'Crime Boat'

The below short story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine. 

Crime Boat 

By Paul Davis

Back in 2009, I called the bold bank robbers in South Philadelphia the 'Cook Crooks' in my crime column in the local paper.  

I called them the Cook Crooks, as the armed bank robbers wore a mask and a tall, white and pleated chef’s hat as they held up bank employees at gunpoint in a series of bank robberies in South Philadelphia. 

I interviewed FBI Supervisory Special Agent Michael Virgillo at the time, as he headed up the task force committed to capturing the armed criminals. He agreed that the chef’s hat threw off witnesses. 

“They all described the chef hats in great detail, but they could not describe anything else about the bank robbers,” Virgillo told me. “The hats were an attention grabber.” 

Two weeks ago, I received a call from a local defense attorney who told me he was calling on behalf of his client, who was serving a long federal prison term at FCI Fairton in Fairton, New Jersey. He said his client read my weekly newspaper column and wanted to talk to me about the series of bank robberies in the mid-2000s. 

I ventured from my South Philly home to Fairton, New Jersey and entered the mid-security level federal prison. I was escorted to an interview room, where John Kelly was waiting for me. He was younger than me, but he looked older, as he was rail-thin, gray and had a long, creased face. I shook his hand, took out my pen, notebook and tape recorder and laid them on the table between us, and then sat down. 

Kelly was one of the Cook Crooks. He said he read my weekly column, and like me, he was from South Philadelphia. Also, like me, he served in the U.S. Navy, although his service was some years after mine. 

Kelly wasted no time and went right into his story. 

Kelly, Pat Collins and Bob Reilly were boyhood friends and '2 Streeters.' While in high school they belonged to an Irish American street corner gang on Second Street in South Philadelphia. Kelly was a lean teenager with sandy hair, Reilly was short and wiry with light brown hair, and Collins was tall, dark and muscular. 

Kelly was a quiet, unassuming young man and Reilly was good-natured and funny, but their leader, Collins, was a tough, vicious, and intelligent teenager. Collins planned the small-time burglaries and armed stick-ups that the trio committed in their last year of high school. They committed the crimes as much for fun and excitement as they did for the money. They were never caught and none of the young men had a police record. 

After the three graduated high school, Kelly joined the U.S. Navy and served as a coxswain (pronounced cox’s’n) in charge of the captain’s small boat, called a 'gig,' on a guided missile frigate in the Mediterranean Sea. Reilly joined the Carpenters’ Union and Collins worked odd jobs until he was old enough to join the Philadelphia Police Department. 

After leaving the Navy, Kelly became a bank guard, Reilly worked as a carpenter on construction sites in Philadelphia, and Collins worked as a patrolman, cruising the streets of South Philly’s 3^rd District. 

Collins remained a crook, even though he wore a policeman’s uniform. He took bribes, stole money and drugs from crime scenes, and extorted money from low-level criminals. When he felt Internal Affairs investigators closing in on him, he resigned abruptly from the police department. 

Collins rekindled his friendship with Kelly and Reilly. He was pleased that Kelly was a bank guard. He asked Kelly for the best time and day to rob the bank where he served as a guard. 

On the day of the planned robbery, Kelly called in sick and sat behind the wheel of a stolen car as Collins and Reilly went into the bank, waving handguns and shouting while wearing masks and the tall chef’s hats. 

They gathered up the money from the tellers and walked calmly out to the car. They climbed in and Kelly drove off. 

The bank robbery went off smoothly, just as Collins planned, and Collins’ idea of wearing chef’s hats made them all laugh. The trio went on to rob several more banks, and the TV news and newspapers made them out to be something of a curiosity due to the chef’s hats. 

The Philadelphia Police and the FBI were not amused. 

With his share of the illegal money, Collins bought a house with a dock in Wildwood, New Jersey and a 42-foot Silverton white fishing boat. Reilly, the carpenter, built a secret compartment in the boat’s cabin to hold the bulk of the trio’s stolen money.  

Collins named the fishing boat Crime Pays. Reilly thought that was funny, but Kelly was concerned that the name would draw unwanted attention towards them. Collins replied that as an ex-cop, he could get away with the name. 

Collins loved to go to sea with his partners, although he knew nothing about boats or the sea. Kelly urged Collins to take the Coast Guard's small boat course, but Collins never did. He used Kelly, the former sailor, to take the boat out and Collins learned the basics from watching Kelly. Once out at sea, Collins would discuss their robbery plans as they drank beer and downed shots of whiskey.   

Things went on smoothy for several years, until they robbed a bank on Oregon Avenue in South Philadelphia. Exiting the bank, Collins slammed into a uniformed policeman who was coming in. The young policeman saw the mask and the chef’s hat on Collins' head, and he pulled his Glock service firearm out of its holster. Collins, who had his gun in his hand, shot the police officer in the head, killing him. 

Although Collins was a former cop, he felt no guilt in killing the police officer. As he later told his partners, it was kill or be killed. 

The TV news and the newspapers no longer treated the bank robbers as a curiosity, as they were now vicious cop killers. Kelly and Collins headed to Wildwood, New Jersey to hide out, and Reilly headed to his cabin in the Pocono Mountains to lay low until things calmed down. But even after several months, things did not calm down for the cop killers. 

In Wildwood, Collins asked Kelly to take Crime Pays out to sea. Collins cut the engine and told Kelly that he wanted to sell his South Philly and Wildwood houses and then take the boat to Florida, where he had a third home. He wanted Kelly and Reilly to join him in Florida.  

Kelly objected, as he had a wife and young son in South Philly. Collins, who had already sent his girlfriend to Florida, told Kelly to leave his family and then send for them later. 

Kelly, the usually quiet and compliant one, said no firmly. He said they should contact Reilly and they should evenly split up the money and then go their separate ways. 

Collins, stone-faced and silent, pulled out a .25 semi-automatic Beretta from his pants pocket and shot Kelly in the chest. Kelly’s hands gripped his chest, cried out in pain, and then collapsed on the deck. Collins placed the Beretta back in his pocket, lifted Kelly up and slipped him overboard into the ocean. Collins started the boat and headed back to shore. 

Once back at the boat dock, Collins cleaned the boat thoroughly. He got on the phone and told a friend in real estate to sell his Philadelphia and New Jersey homes. He then called Reilly and told him to meet him in Florida. 

“Oh, by the way, John’s dead,” Collins told Reilly. 

“Shit. What happened?” 

“He died of heart failure.” 

“He had a bad heart?” 

“No. His heart failed when my bullet pierced it."

“What?” 

“Just an old joke. Meet me at my Florida house next Tuesday.”

But the meeting never took place, as Kelly, a fit and healthy man, survived the gunshot wound and several hours floating in the ocean. He was discovered bobbing in the sea and rescued by a U.S. Coast Guard cutter. 

While recovering in the hospital, Kelly asked to see the FBI. He confessed to the FBI agents of his involvement in the bank robberies and explained that Collins murdered the police officer and tried to murder him.

He told the FBI where they could find Collins in Florida and Reilly in the Poconos. 

 

Now sitting in Fairton prison, Kelly told me he felt bad about informing on Reilly, but he thought he was saving his life. Surely, Collins would have shot him as well. 

“I always knew Pat was a cold-hearted prick, but I didn’t think he would try to kill me,” Kelly said. 

As for Collins, Kelly asked me if I remembered what happened in 2012. 

“No, what?” 

“Hurricane Sandy,” Kelly replied. “Pat owned a boat, but he was no fucking sailor. The dummy sailed Crime Pays right into the path of Hurricane Sandy." 

Kelly said that according to the Coast Guard, the boat went down somewhere off Cape May, New Jersey during the powerful and devastating hurricane. 

"Pat washed up ashore dead, but Crime Pays sunk with all that money aboard.” 

“Well," I said. "I guess crime doesn’t always pay.”  

© 2022 By Paul Davis

CIA Official With Top Security Clearance Charged For Leaking Highly Classified Docs About Israel’s Plans To Strike Iran

 The New York Post reports that a CIA officer has been charged with leaking classified information:

A CIA official has been charged with leaking highly classified US intelligence about Israel’s potential plan to retaliate against Iran for a missile strike earlier this year.

Asif W. Rahman (seen in the above photo), who worked overseas for the agency and held a top-secret security clearance, was arrested by the FBI in Cambodia on Tuesday and indicted under the Espionage Act, the New York Times reported.

His arrest comes after the top secret materials started circulating online last month detailing Israel’s apparent intention to hit back at Iran after the country launched a barrage of missiles back on Oct. 1.    

The official was charged with leaking highly classified documents about Israel’s plans to strike Iran.

The files, which were prepared by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, in part detailed satellite imagery tied to the potential Israeli strike, as well as the various kinds of missiles on hand. They were posted by a telegram account called “Middle East Spectator.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

CIA official with top security clearance indicted for leaking highly classified documents about Israel's plans to strike Iran

You can also read the Justice Department’s press release below:

U.S. Government Employee Charged with Two Counts of Unlawfully Transmitting National Defense Information

A U.S. government employee working overseas was charged with unlawfully transmitting two highly sensitive classified documents last month.

According to court documents, Asif William Rahman, 34, held a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) security clearance as part of his role working for the U.S. government. According to an indictment filed in the Eastern District of Virginia on Nov. 7, Rahman, on or about Oct. 17, retained without authorization two documents classified at the Top Secret/SCI level, which contained information relating to national defense, and transmitted those documents to a person not entitled to receive them.

Rahman made his initial appearance in federal court in Guam on Nov. 14. The court ordered Rahman’s continued detention and removal from the District of Guam for further court hearings in the Eastern District of Virginia.

The FBI is investigating the case with valuable assistance from the U.S. Department of State's Diplomatic Security Service.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

On This Day In History: Herman Melville’s Great American Novel, ‘Moby-Dick,’ Only Got Mixed Reviews When It First Hit Bookstores

Eli Wizevich at Smithsonian magazine offers a piece on Herman Melville’s great novel Moby Dick:  

November 14, 1851, marked the first day that the American public could purchase Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, the latest novel by the modestly successful author Herman Melville, for $1.50 (around $60 today).

At the time, Melville already had five books to his name. Several, including Typee, Omoo and White-Jacket, drew on his experiences living and traveling at sea. His third, Mardi, flirted with romance and deeper philosophy but lacked overall coherence, critics said.5heMysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe Skip Ad

Moby-Dick, which Melville wrote mainly at his Arrowhead estate in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, masterfully married his deep personal experience and research on whaling tales with philosophy, natural science and revelatory biblical prose. In late June 1850, the novelist proposed the partially written novel to his British publisher, Richard Bentley, and promised that he would have it completed by “the latter part of the coming autumn.”

But the writing process took much longer than expected. Moby-Dick was becoming a whale of a book, dense with detail, emotion and plot. To make matters worse, Melville’s American publisher, Harper & Brothers, refused to give him an advance because he still owed the company money from past book deals.

Melville sought loans from friends to sustain himself through another year of writing. To expedite the publishing process and hopefully limit editorial changes, he opted to typeset and copy-edit Moby-Dick independently while he was still writing later sections of the book.

Finally, in the fall of 1851—a year behind schedule—Moby-Dick was ready for publication. Bentley released the first British edition, titled The Whale, on October 18. Harper & Brothers, notwithstanding Melville’s debt, published the first American edition of Moby-Dick on November 14.

In total, the British first edition was 2,000 words shorter than the American one, despite being published in an ornate three-volume set. Bentley only ordered 500 copies of The Whale—significantly lower than the number printed for Melville’s earlier efforts. Harper & Brothers, meanwhile, printed 2,915 copies of Moby-Dick. The American publisher’s printings of Melville’s previous novels ranged from just over 3,000 to roughly 4,000 copies.

The quality of the single-volume edition of Melville’s latest book attracted some scorn. The New Bedford, Massachusetts, Daily Mercury, the hometown paper of the American whaling industry, called it “a bulky, queer-looking volume, in some respects ‘very like a whale’ even in outward appearance.”

The response to the content of the book itself was similarly lukewarm. The Hartford Courant, in a review, wrote that Moby-Dick somewhat confoundingly straddled the line between fiction and nonfiction. Nevertheless, the reviewer added, “It is well worth reading as a book of amusement.”

To many literary critics, Moby-Dick was simply an adventure tale, not even a patricianly sensational one at that, and certainly not a work of fine literature. A review in the Springfield Daily Republican politely noted Melville’s “quaint though interesting style.”

Reviewers’ apathy was reflected in the novel’s sales figures. Three years after Moby-Dick’s release, the first American printing had still not sold out.

Only some contemporary reviews offered a glimpse of the success and admiration that Moby-Dick would earn in the decades after Melville’s death in 1891. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Melville’s neighbor and friend, to whom the text is dedicated, reproached one negative review with a simple exclamation: “What a book Melville has written! It gives me an idea of much greater power than his preceding ones.” 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

 Herman Melville's Great American Novel, 'Moby-Dick,' Only Got Mixed Reviews When It First Hit Bookstores | Smithsonian