Having left most of Moby-Dick with a printer in 1851, Herman Melville lamented to Nathaniel Hawthorne that he would go down in history as a -man who lived among the cannibals - Until his death in 1891, Melville was known as the author of Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847)--both semiautobiographical travel books, and literary sensations because of Melville's sensual description of the South Sea islanders. (A transatlantic furor raged over whether the books were fact or fiction.) His most famous character was Fayaway--not Captain Ahab, not the White Whale, not Bartleby, and...
Having left most of Moby-Dick with a printer in 1851, Herman Melville lamented to Nathaniel Hawthorne that he would go down in history as a ...
The first volume of Hershel Parker's definitive biography of Herman Melville--a finalist for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize--closed on a mid-November day in 1851. In the dining room of the Little Red Inn in Lenox, Massachusetts, Melville had just presented an inscribed copy of his new novel, Moby-Dick, to his intimate friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, the man to whom the work was dedicated. -Take it all in all, - Parker concluded, -this was the happiest day of Melville's life.-
Herman Melville: A Biography, Volume 2, 1851-1891 chronicles Melville's life in rich detail, from this...
The first volume of Hershel Parker's definitive biography of Herman Melville--a finalist for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize--closed on a mid-November day ...
Herman Melville's Pierre; or. The Ambiguities has a storied place in the history of American publishing. Melville began writing this follow-up to Moby-Dick in October 1851, thinking that it might prove even more significant than its predecessor. The 1852 publication of Pierre was catastrophic, however. Melville lost his English publisher, and American reviewers derided the book and called the author mad. InReading Melville's "Pierre; or, The Ambiguities," noted Melville authorities Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker probe the daunting story behind a deeply flawed but revealing work, one that...
Herman Melville's Pierre; or. The Ambiguities has a storied place in the history of American publishing. Melville began writing this follow-up to M...
In Moby Dick Melville set out to write a "mighty book" on "a mighty theme." The editors of this critical text affirm that he succeeded. Nevertheless, their prolonged examination of the novel reveals textual flaws and anomalies that help to explain Melville's fears that his great work was in some ways a hash or a botch. A lengthy historical note also gives a fresh account of Melville's earlier literary career and his working conditions as he wrote; it also analyzes the book's contemporary reception and outlines how it finally achieved fame. Other sections review theories of the book's...
In Moby Dick Melville set out to write a "mighty book" on "a mighty theme." The editors of this critical text affirm that he succeeded. Neverth...
In Moby Dick Melville set out to write a "mighty book" on "a mighty theme." The editors of this critical text affirm that he succeeded. Nevertheless, their prolonged examination of the novel reveals textual flaws and anomalies that help to explain Melville's fears that his great work was in some ways a hash or a botch. A lengthy historical note also gives a fresh account of Melville's earlier literary career and his working conditions as he wrote; it also analyzes the book's contemporary reception and outlines how it finally achieved fame. Other sections review theories of the book's...
In Moby Dick Melville set out to write a "mighty book" on "a mighty theme." The editors of this critical text affirm that he succeeded. Neverth...
In this new edition of The Piazza Tales, the editors of the acclaimed Northwestern-Newberry Edition of the Writings of Herman Melville have used the original magazine versions for five of the six stories in order to present the most accurate tests of these works. Here, in such famous stories as -Bartleby, the Scrivener- and -The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles, - we find Melville's imagination and style at its best. Of the less well known tales, the humor in -The Piazza- and -The Lightning-Rod Man, - and the gothic horror of -The Bell Tower, - command attention as well. Whether in the...
In this new edition of The Piazza Tales, the editors of the acclaimed Northwestern-Newberry Edition of the Writings of Herman Melville have us...
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 ...
An evaluation of the importance of textual criticism in evaluation of important literary works, based on his study of important American literary works by authors such as James, Crane, and Mailer.
An evaluation of the importance of textual criticism in evaluation of important literary works, based on his study of important American literary work...
This volume presents Melville's three known journals. Unlike his contemporaries Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Melville kept no habitual record of his days and thoughts; each of his three journals records his actions and observations on trips far from home. In this edition's Historical Note, Howard C. Horsford places each of the journals in the context of Melville's career, discusses its general character, and points out the later literary uses he made of it, notably in Moby-Dick, Clarel, and his magazine pieces. The editors supply full annotations of Melville's allusions and...
This volume presents Melville's three known journals. Unlike his contemporaries Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Melville kept no habitual record of h...
In this study of Melville's Billy Budd, Sailor, renowned Melville scholar Hershel Parker provides the fullest introduction to and analysis of this work to date. It is the first complete reading of Billy Budd to draw on the definitive but neglected Hayford-Sealts Genetic Text. For the first time, it places Billy Budd in the context of Melville's writings and projects of the last decade of his life; and it is the first to present the work as a product of the post-Gilded Age and fin-de-siecle period rather than of the mid-century high romanticism of...
In this study of Melville's Billy Budd, Sailor, renowned Melville scholar Hershel Parker provides the fullest introduction to and analysis of ...
