October 18

In literary history

• 1851Richard Bentley published Herman Melville's novel in London as The Whale, minus the epilogue explaining how Ishmael survived. British reviewers complained the narrator seemed to perish with the ship; in America a month later, the epilogue was restored and nobody much cared.

Writers born on October 18

• Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (1741),
• Heinrich von Kleist (1777)

The Daily Canon for October 18

Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (1782).