In 1847 he married Elizabeth Shaw and after initially settling in New York they moved to Massachusetts. By 1851 his masterpiece, Moby Dick, was ready and published. It is perhaps, and certainly at the time, one of the most ambitious novels ever written. However it never sold out its initial print run of 3,000 and Melville's earnings on this masterpiece was $556.37. In succeeding years his reputation waned and he found life increasingly difficult. His family was growing, now four children, and a stable income was essential. By 1855 with his writings almost ignored he joined the New York...

The Piazza Tales is a collection of Herman Melville short stories including: The Piazza, Bartleby, the Scrivener, Benito Cereno, The Lightning-Rod Man, The Encantadas or Enchanted Isles, The Bell-Tower. Herman Melville was an American writer of novels, short stories and poetry. Melville was a schoolteacher for a short time and a seaman. On his first voyage he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands. His first book, Typee, was an account of that time and became a bestseller and Melville became known as the "man who lived among the cannibals." Public indifference to Moby-Dick put an end to his...

The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade portrays a group of steamboat passengers whose interlocking stories are told as they travel down the Mississippi River toward New Orleans. The novel's title refers to its central character, an ambiguous figure who sneaks aboard a Mississippi steamboat. This stranger attempts to test the confidence of the passengers. Herman Melville was an American writer of novels, short stories and poetry. Melville was a schoolteacher for a short time and a seaman. On his first voyage he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands. His first book, Typee, was an account of that...

Pierre; or, The Ambiguities tells the story of Pierre Glendinning Jr., the 19-year-old heir of the manor at Saddle Meadows in New York. Pierre is engaged to Lucy Tartan in a match approved by his domineering mother, who controls the estate adter the death of his father. He encounters the dark and mysterious Isabel Banford discovering that she is the illegitimate and orphaned child of his father and a European refugee. Pierre devises a scheme to preserve his father's name, spare his mother's grief, and give Isabel her proper share of the estate. Herman Melville was an American writer of...

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an epic sea-story of Captain Ahab's voyage in pursuit of Moby Dick, a great white whale and is considered one of the Great American Novels and a leading work of American Romanticism. Narrated by Ishmael the story follows the voyage of the whaleship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab who sole mission is revenge on Moby Dick, a ferocious white whale which had destroyed Ahab's ship and severed his leg at the knee. Herman Melville was an American writer of novels, short stories and poetry. Melville was a schoolteacher for a short time and a seaman. On his first voyage...

Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile is loosely based on an autobiography that Melville acquired in the 1840s, Life and Remarkable Adventures of Israel R. Potter. The story revolves around Potter who leaves his plow to fight in the American Revolution. He is wounded in the Battle of Bunker Hill later captured by the British Navy and taken to England where his escape launches him into a series of adventurous events. Herman Melville was an American writer of novels, short stories and poetry. Melville was a schoolteacher for a short time and a seaman. On his first voyage he jumped ship in the...

I and My Chimney - By Herman Melville - Classic Herman Melville. I and my chimney, two grey-headed old smokers, reside in the country. We are, I may say, old settlers here; particularly my old chimney, which settles more and more every day. Though I always say, I and My Chimney, as Cardinal Wolsey used to say, "I and My King," yet this egotistic way of speaking, wherein I take precedence of my chimney, is hardly borne out by the facts; in everything, except the above phrase, my chimney taking precedence of me. Within thirty feet of the turf-sided road, my chimney--a huge, corpulent old Harry...