The letters by and to Melville in this volume extend from letters he wrote at the age of nine in 1828 to ones he sent and received during the year before his death at seventy-two in 1891. To fill the gaps within the correspondence, 542 editorial entries are chronologically interspersed for letters both by and to Melville for which no full text has been located but for which some evidence survives. This scholarly edition presents a text as close to the author's intention as his difficult handwriting or other surviving evidence permits. Fifty-two newly discovered letters by Melville, more...
The letters by and to Melville in this volume extend from letters he wrote at the age of nine in 1828 to ones he sent and received during the year bef...
Unique among Melville's works, Israel Potter was the author's only historical novel, presuming to offer the life history of Revolutionary War figure Israel Potter--based on Potter's own obscure narrative Life and Remarkable Adventures of Israel R. Potter--and featuring characters such as Benjamin Franklin and Ethan Allen. In offering the manuscript to his publisher, Melville assured him, "I engage that the story shall contain nothing of any sort to shock the fastidious. There will be very little reflective writing in it; nothing weighty. It is adventure." This came as a relief,...
Unique among Melville's works, Israel Potter was the author's only historical novel, presuming to offer the life history of Revolutionary War ...
Presented as narratives of his own South Sea experiences, Melville's first two books had roused incredulity in many readers. Their disbelief, he declared, had been "the main inducement" in altering his plan for his third book, Mardi: and a Voyage Thither (1849). Melville wanted to exploit the "rich poetical material" of Polynesia and also to escape feeling "irked, cramped, & fettered" by a narrative of facts. "I began to feel . . . a longing to plume my pinions for a flight," he told his English publisher. Mardi began as a sequel to Typee (1846) and Omoo...
Presented as narratives of his own South Sea experiences, Melville's first two books had roused incredulity in many readers. Their disbelief, he decla...
Herman Melville wrote White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War during two months of intense work in the summer of 1849. He drew upon his memories of naval life, having spent fourteen months as an ordinary seaman aboard a frigate as it sailed the Pacific and made the homeward voyage around Cape Horn. Already that same summer Melville had written Redburn, and he regarded the books as "two jobs, which I have done for money--being forced to it, as other men are to sawing wood." The reviewers were not as hard on White-Jacket as Melville himself was. The English...
Herman Melville wrote White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War during two months of intense work in the summer of 1849. He drew upon his mem...
This edition of Moby-Dick, released in honor of the book's sesquicentennial, is the authoritative text of one of the world's great adventure stories. A crew of whalers sets out in pursuit of a fierce white whale. Their names ring through the canon of American literature: Ishmael, the narrator; Queequeg, a South Seas harpooner; Starbuck, the sober and serious chief mate; and above all Captain Ahab, part-Faust and part-Job, obsessed with the destruction of his foe. This text of Moby-Dick is an Approved Text of the Center for Scholarly Editions (Modern Language Association of...
This edition of Moby-Dick, released in honor of the book's sesquicentennial, is the authoritative text of one of the world's great adventure st...
Almost from the time of its publication in 1846, Melville's first book, based on his own travels in the South Seas, has been recognized as a classic in the literature of travel and adventure. Although initially rejected as too fantastic to be true, Typee was immensely popular and regarded in Melville's lifetime as his best work. It established his reputation as the literary discoverer of the South Seas and inspired the likes of Jack London and Robert Louis Stevenson. Two common sailors jump ship and are held in benign captivity by Polynesian natives. Through the narrator's eyes we...
Almost from the time of its publication in 1846, Melville's first book, based on his own travels in the South Seas, has been recognized as a classic i...
This facsimile of Melville's historical novel appears in a paperback classroom edition, with a commentary by Hennig Cohen. Israel Potter is the story of a neglected hero of the American Revolution.
This facsimile of Melville's historical novel appears in a paperback classroom edition, with a commentary by Hennig Cohen. Israel Potter is the story ...
The entries collected in the Selected Poems of Herman Melville were chosen with literary consideration foremost: they encompass a wide variety of nearly 25 years work in verse. Included here are pieces from his most important verse, but poems of lesser regard also appear in the interest of exploring Melville's artistic development and correlation to his novels.
The entries collected in the Selected Poems of Herman Melville were chosen with literary consideration foremost: they encompass a wide variety of near...