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Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September
28, 1891) was an American novelist, essayist, and poet. During his
lifetime his early novels were popular, but his popularity declined
later in his life. By the time of his death he had nearly been
forgotten, but his masterpiece, Moby Dick, was "rediscovered."
****
Life
Herman Melville was born in New York City
on August 1, 1819 as the third child to Allan and Maria Gansevoort
Melvill (Maria would later add an 'e' to the surname), and received his
early education in that city. One of his grandfathers, Major Thomas
Melvill, participated in the Boston Tea Party. Another was General Peter
Gansevoort who was acquainted with James Fenimore Cooper and defended
Fort Stanwix in 1777. His father had described the young Melville as
being somewhat slow as a child and Melville was also weakened by the
scarlet fever, permanently affecting his eyesight. The family importing
business went bankrupt in 1830, and the family went to Albany, New York,
with Herman entering Albany Academy. Prior to that year, he attended
Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in Manhattan. After the death of
his father in 1832, the family (with eight children) moved to the
village of Lansingburgh on the Hudson River. Herman and his brother
Gansevoort were forced to work to help support the family. There Herman
remained until 1835, when he attended the Albany Classical School for
some months.
Melville's roving disposition, and a desire
to support himself independently of family assistance, led him to seek
work as a surveyor on the Erie Canal. This effort failed, and his
brother helped him get a job as a cabin boy in a New York vessel bound
for Liverpool. He made the voyage, visited London, and returned in the
same ship. Redburn: His First Voyage, published in 1849, is partly
founded on the experiences of this trip. A good part of the succeeding
three years, from 1837 to 1840, was occupied with school-teaching. At
any rate, he once more signed a ship's articles, and on January 1, 1841,
sailed from New Bedford, Massachusetts harbour in the whaler Acushnet,
bound for the Pacific Ocean and the sperm fishery. The vessel sailed
around Cape Horn and traveled to the South Pacific. He has left very
little direct information as to the events of this eighteen months'
cruise, although his whaling romance, Moby-Dick; or, the Whale, probably
gives many pictures of life on board the Acushnet. Melville decided to
abandon the vessel on reaching the Marquesas Islands. He lived among the
natives of the island for several weeks and the narrative of Typee and
its sequel, Omoo, tell this tale. After a sojourn at the Society
Islands, Melville shipped for Honolulu. There he remained for four
months, employed as a clerk. He joined the crew of the American frigate
United States, which reached Boston, stopping on the way at one of the
Peruvian ports, in October of 1844. Upon his return, he recorded his
experiences in the books, Typee, Omoo, Mardi, Redburn, and White-Jacket,
published in the following six years.
Melville married Elizabeth Shaw (daughter
of noted jurist, Lemuel Shaw) on August 4, 1847. The Melvilles resided
in New York City until 1850, when they purchased Arrowhead, a farm house
in Pittsfield, Massachusetts (which is today a museum). Here Melville
remained for thirteen years, occupied with his writing, and managing his
farm. There he befriended Nathaniel Hawthorne who lived in the area.
There he wrote Moby Dick and Pierre, works that did not achieve the same
popular and critical success as his earlier books.
While at Pittsfield, because of financial
reasons, Melville was induced to enter the lecture field. From 1857 to
1860 he spoke at lyceums, chiefly speaking of his adventures in the
South Seas. He also became a customs inspector for the City of New York,
a post he held for 19 years. After an illness that lasted a number of
months, Herman Melville died at his home in New York City early on the
morning of September 28, 1891. He was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery
in The Bronx, New York. In his later life, his works no longer
accessible to a broad audience, he was not able to make money from
writing. He depended on his wife's family for money along with his other
attempts at employment. His short novel Billy Budd, an unpublished
manuscript at the time of his death, was published in 1924 and later
turned into an opera by Benjamin Britten, a play, and a film by Peter
Ustinov.
Literature
Moby-Dick has become Melville's most famous
work and is often considered one of the greatest American novels. It was
dedicated to Melville's friend Nathaniel Hawthorne. Melville also wrote
White-Jacket, Typee, Omoo, Pierre, 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 life;
after the Civil War, he published Battle-Pieces, which sold well. But
again tending to outrun the tastes of his readers, Melville's epic
length verse-narrative Clarel, about a student's pilgrimage to the Holy
Land, was also quite unknown in his own time. His poetry is not as
highly critically esteemed as his fiction.
Bibliography
Novels
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)
Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (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"
"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) Online edition
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)
****
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Date Article Copied:
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