Herman Melville

Herman Melville (August 1 1819 – September 28 1891) was an American novelist, essayist, and poet. During his own lifetime his early novels, South Seas adventures, were quite popular, but his audience declined later in his life. By the time of his death he had nearly been forgotten, but his masterpiece, Moby-Dick, was "rediscovered" in following years and he is now widely esteemed as one of the most important figures in American literature.

Works

Moby-Dick

Melville was a friend of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and was influenced by the latter's writing; Moby-Dick is dedicated to Hawthorne.

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Other works

Melville also wrote White-Jacket, Typee, Omoo, , The Confidence-Man and many short stories and works of various genres. His short story "Bartleby the Scrivener" is among his most important pieces, and has been considered a precursor to Existentialist and Absurdist literature. Melville is less well known as a poet and did not publish poetry until late in his life; after the Civil War, he published Battle-Pieces, which sold well. But once again tending to outrun the tastes of his readers, Melville's poetic masterpiece, the epic length verse-narrative Clarel, about a student's pilgrimage to the Holy Land, was also quite unknown in his own time.

Related Topics:
White-Jacket - Typee - Omoo - The Confidence-Man - Genre - Bartleby the Scrivener - Existentialist - Absurdist - Poet - Civil War - Battle-Pieces - Clarel - Holy Land

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Novels

• Typee: http://wikisource.org/wiki/Typee A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846)
• Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (1847)
• Mardi: And a Voyage Thither (1849)
• Redburn: His First Voyage (1849)
• White-Jacket: or, The World in a Man-of-War (1850)
• Moby-Dick (1851)
• ' (1852)
• Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (1855)
• The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857)
• Billy Budd, Sailor: An Inside Narrative (1924)

Short stories

• The Piazza Tales (1856)
• "The Piazza" -- the only story specifically written for the collection. (The other five had previously been published in Putnam's Monthly Magazine.)
• "Bartleby the Scrivener" http://wikisource.org/wiki/Bartleby_the_Scrivener
• "Benito Cereno"
• "The Lightning-Rod Man"
• "The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles"
• "The Bell-Tower"

Poetry

• Battle Pieces: And Aspects of the War (1866)
• Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land (poems) (1876)
• John Marr and Other Sailors (1888)
• Timoleon (1891)

Uncollected

• Fragments from a Writing Desk, No. 1 (Published in Democratic Press, and Lansingburgh Advertiser, May 4 1839)
• Fragments from a Writing Desk, No. 2 (Published in Democratic Press, and Lansingburgh Advertiser, May 18 1839)
• Etchings of a Whaling Cruise (Published in New York Literary World, March 6 1847)
• Authentic Anecdotes of "Old Zack" (Published in Yankee Doodle, II, weekly (September 4 excepted) from July 24 to September 11 1847)
• Mr Parkman's Tour (Published in New York Literary World, March 31 1849)
• Cooper's New Novel (Published in New York Literary World, April 28 1849)
• A Thought on Book-Binding (Published in New York Literary World, March 16 1850)
• Hawthorne and His Mosses (Published in New York Literary World, August 17 and August 24 1850)
• Cock-A-Doodle-Doo! (Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, December 1853)
• Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man's Crumbs (Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, June 1854)
• The Happy Failure (Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, July 1854)
• The Fiddler (Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, September 1854)
• The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids (Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, April 1855)
• Jimmy Rose (Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, November 1855)
• The 'Gees (Published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, March 1856)
• I and My Chimney (Published in Putnam's Monthly Magazine, March 1856)
• The Apple-Tree Table (Published in Putnam's Monthly Magazine, May 1856)
• Uncollected Prose (1856)
• The Two Temples (unpublished in Melville's lifetime)