Herman Melville

Was to hide with a peaceful tribe, however, they encounter an encampment of man-eating Typees. The Typees lavish them with good will. The boys soon learn they are prisoners, not guests. Their benevolent hosts are unyielding captors.

Long before penning Moby-Dick, which many regard as the quintessential American novel, author Herman Melville was captivated by life on the open sea. White Jacket adopts a different perspective, focusing on the brutal treatment that many sailors received at the hands of their superiors. In particular, it has been noted that this novel proved to be instrumental in banning the practice of flogging in several branches of the U.S. military.

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Herman Melville's final masterpiece, found unpublished on his desk at his death. Billy Budd, Sailor would emerge, after its publication in 1924, as one of Melville's best-loved books--and one of his most open, with its discussion of homosexuality. In it, Melville returns to the sea to tell the story of Billy, a cheerful, hard working, and handsome young sailor, conscripted to work against his will on another ship, where he soon finds himself persecuted...

"Call me Ishmael." So begins Melville's classic novel of Captain Ahab, the Pequod, and the mighty whale, Moby Dick.

A fictionalized account about the revolt on a 19th-century Spanish slavery ship, Benito Cereno was first published in three installments in 1855. Melville scholar Merton M. Sealts, Jr. called the story "an oblique comment on those prevailing attitudes toward blacks and slavery in the United States that would ultimately precipitate civil war between North and South." The famous question of what had cast such a shadow upon Cereno was used by American...

Vol. 24.

"These three early novels are stirring romances of the South Seas; many of these fictional details resemble some of the events in Melville's own life in the early 1840s"--Jacket.

Step into the world of Herman Melville's masterful storytelling with our short story collection.

Experience the gripping narrative of 'Bartleby the Scrivener, A Story of Wall Street,' a thought-provoking tale delving into themes of individuality and society. Feel the adrenaline rush with 'The Chase,' where suspense and adventure collide in Melville's vivid storytelling. Then, embark on a maritime journey unlike any other in 'Rounding

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Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile is the eighth book by American writer Herman Melville. When Israel Potter leaves his plow to fight in the American Revolution, he's immediately thrown into the Battle of Bunker Hill, where he receives multiple wounds. However, this does not deter him, and after hearing a rousing speech by General George Washington, he volunteers for further duty, this time at sea, where more ill fortune awaits him. Israel is...

If Melville had never written Moby Dick, his place in world literature would be assured by his short tales. "Billy Budd, Sailor," his last work, is the masterpiece in which he delivers the final summation in his "quarrel with God." It is a brilliant study of the tragic clash between social authority and individual freedom, human justice and abstract good. Melville also explores this theme in "Bartelby the Scrivener,"...