Herman Melville

Herman Melville towers among American writers not only for his powerful novels, but also for the stirring novellas and short stories that flowed from his pen. Two of the most admired of these — "Bartleby" and "Benito Cereno" — first appeared as magazine pieces and were then published in 1856 as part of a collection of short stories entitled The Piazza Tales. "Bartleby" (also known as "Bartleby the Scrivener") is an intriguing moral allegory set in the business world of mid-19th-century New York. A strange, enigmatic man employed as a clerk in a legal office, Bartleby forces his employer to come to grips with the most basic questions of human responsibility, and haunts the latter's conscience, even after Bartleby's dismissal. "Benito Cereno," considered one of Melville's best short stories, deals with a bloody slave revolt on a Spanish vessel. A splendid parable of man's struggle against the forces of evil, the carefully developed and mysteriously guarded plot builds to a dramatic climax while revealing the horror and depravity of which man is capable. Reprinted here from standard texts in a finely made, yet inexpensive new edition, these stories offer the general reader and students of Melville and American literature sterling examples of a literary giant at his story-telling best.

A new, definitive edition of Herman Melville’s virtuosic short stories—American classics wrought with scorching fury, grim humor, and profound beauty Though best-known for his epic masterpiece Moby-Dick, Herman Melville also left a body of short stories arguably unmatched in American fiction. In the sorrowful tragedy of Billy Budd, Sailor; the controlled rage of Benito Cereno; and the tantalizing enigma of Bartleby, the Scrivener; Melville reveals himself as a singular storyteller of tremendous range and compelling power. In these stories, Melville cuts to the heart of race, class, capitalism, and globalism in America, deftly navigating political and social issues that resonate as clearly in our time as they did in Melville’s. Also including The Piazza Tales in full, this collection demonstrates why Melville stands not only among the greatest writers of the nineteenth century, but also as one of our greatest contemporaries. This Penguin Classics edition features the Reading Text of Billy Budd, Sailor, as edited from a genetic study of the manuscript by Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Sealts, Jr., and the authoritative Northwestern-Newberry text of The Piazza Tales. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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Herman Melville is a giant of American literature, whose novels are hailed as literary masterpieces. This eBook offers readers the complete works for the first time in digital print, as well as an array of bonus features. Features:* illustrated with many images relating to Melville’s life and works* annotated with concise introductions to the novels and other works* ALL the novels (except BILLY BUDD), with separate contents tables* MOBY-DICK and other works are presented with their original illustrations* images of how the novels first appeared, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts* two short story collections* the complete poetry collections* the scarce poetry collection WEEDS AND WILDINGS, which Melville wrote for his wife - first time in digital print* uncollected poetry section, with rare works* separate CHRONOLOGICAL and ALPHABETICAL contents tables for the poetry – find that special poem easily!* includes Melville's complete essays, available nowhere else* bonus collection of letters by Melville - explore the writer's personal correspondence* boasts a special criticism section, with essays by writers such as D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf examining Melville’s contribution to literature* features Raymond Weaver's seminal biography on Melville, which sparked the great revival in the author* scholarly ordering of texts in chronological order and literary genres, allowing easy navigation around Melville’s immense oeuvreCONTENTS:The Novels Typee Omoo Mardi Redburn White-Jacket Moby-Dick Pierre Israel Potter The Confidence-Man Billy Budd, SailorThe Short Story Collections The Piazza Tales The Apple-Tree Table and Other Sketches Billy Budd and Other Prose PiecesThe Short StoriesList of the Short StoriesThe Poetry Collections Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land John Marr and Other Sailors Timoleon and Other Ventures Weeds and Wildings, with a Rose or Two Uncollected PoemsThe Poems List of Poems in Chronological Order List of Poems in Alphabetical OrderThe Essays Fragments from a Writing Desk Etchings of a Whaling Cruise Review Authentic Anecdotes of ‘Old Zack’ Mr Parkman’s Tour Cooper’s New Novel A Thought on Book-Binding Hawthorne and His MossesThe Letters Some Personal Letters of Herman Melville by Meade MinnigerodeThe Criticism The Best Sea-Story Ever Written by Archibald Macmechan Herman Melville’s Moby Dick by D. H. Lawrence Herman Melville’s Typee and Omoo by D. H. Lawrence Herman Melville by Virginia WoolfThe Biography Herman Melville: Man, Mariner and Mystic by Raymond Weaver

Forgoing the narratives of the sea that prevailed in his earlier works, Melville’s later fiction contains some of the finest and many of his keenest and bleakest observations of life, not on the high seas, but at home in America. With the publication of this Library of America volume, the third of three volumes, all Melville’s fiction has now been restored to print for the first time. Pierre; or, The Ambiguities, published in 1852 (the year after Moby-Dick), moves between the idyllic Berkshire countryside and the nightmare landscape of early New York City. Its hero, a young American patrician trying to redeem the secret sins of his father, elopes to the city, discovers Bohemian life, attempts a literary epic, and struggles his way through incest, murder, and madness. Long a controversial work, it is Melville’s darkest satire of American life and letters and one of his most powerful books. A pivotal work, both for Melville’s career and for American literature, Pierre was followed by Israel Potter, the story of a veteran of the Revolution, victim of a thousand mischances, and a long-suffering exile in England. Along the way are memorable episodes of war and intrigue, with personal portraits of Benjamin Franklin, John Paul Jones, and George III. In the exploits of this touchingly optimistic soldier, Melville offers a scathing image of the collapse of revolutionary hopes. The Piazza Tales demonstrates Melville’s dazzling mastery of many styles, including “The Encantadas,” about nature’s two faces—enchanting and horrific; the famous “Bartleby the Scrivener,” about a Wall Street copyist who “would prefer not to”; and the enigmatic “Benito Cereno,” about a credulous Yankee sea captain who stumbles into an intricately plotted mutiny aboard a disabled slave ship. The Confidence-Man, Melville’s last published novel, is in many ways a forerunner of modernist American fiction. An extended meditation on faith, hope, and charity as these are manifested on board a Mississippi riverboat one April Fools’ Day, it presents a menagerie of Americans buying and selling, borrowing and lending, believing and mistrusting, as they are carried toward the auction blocks of New Orleans. Many pieces never before collected are also included: the “Authentic Anecdotes of Old Zack” (burlesque sketches of Zachary Taylor’s Mexican campaign), “Fragments from a Writing-Desk” (Melville’s earliest surviving prose), reviews of Hawthorne, Parkman, and Cooper, and all the tales Melville published in magazines during the 1850s. Finally, there is the posthumously published masterpiece Billy Budd, Sailor, the haunting story of a beautiful, innocent sailor who is pressed into naval service, slandered, provoked to murder, and sacrificed to military justice. While encouraging questions for which there are no answers, it invites us to meditate on the conflicts central to all Melville’s work: between freedom and fate, innocence and civilized corruption. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

SUMMARY: On board the whaling ship Pequod, a crew of wise men and fools, renegades, and seeming phantoms is hurled through treacherous seas by a crazed captain hell-bent on hunting down the mythic White Whale. As the "great flood-gates of the wonder-world" swing open, Melville transforms the little world of the whale-ship into a crucible where mankind's fears, faith and frailties are pitted against a relentless fate. Teeming with ideas and imagery, and with its extraordinary, compressed intensity sustained by a buoyant, mischievous irony and by moments of exquisite beauty, Melville's masterpiece is both a great American epic and one of the most profoundly imaginative creations in literary history. Herman Melville was born in 1819 in New York City. Both his grandfathers were Revolutionary War heroes but his father, a merchant, died bankrupt in 1833. Melville left school and worked at various jobs before shipping on the whaler Acushnet in 1841. The next year he deserted, traveled the South Seas and joined the US Navy. After three years he retired, settled in Massachusetts and started to write. His first two novels, Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847), were fictionalized accounts of his travels: they remained his most popular works during his lifetime. In 1847 Melville married and wrote a series of novels he considered potboilers for money. With Moby-Dick (1851) he changed course, partly under the influence of Nathaniel Hawthorne; but the novel's extravagant intensity lost him readers. Pierre (1852) fared no better, and after publishing one more novel Melville took a job as a customs inspector in the New York City harbor and turned to writing poetry. He died there in 1891; an unfinished novel, Billy Budd, Sailor, was published in 1924. <h3>From School Library Journal</h3> <p>Grade 5 Up-Opening with the classic line, "Call me Ishmael," the narrator's New England accent adds a touch of authenticity to this sometimes melodramatic presentation. The St. Charles Players do a credible job on the major roles, but some of the group responses, such as "Aye, aye Captain," sound more comic than serious. This adaptation retains a good measure of Melville's dialogue and key passages which afford listeners a vivid connection with the lengthy novel. Background music and appropriate sound effects enhance the telling of the story about Captain Ahab's obsessive pursuit of the malevolent white whale. The cassettes are clearly marked, and running times are noted on each side of the tapes. Announcements at the beginning of each side and a subtle chime signal at the end make it easy to follow the story, but a stereo player must be used to hear some dialogue. The lightweight cardboard package is inadequate for circulation. Done in a radio theatre format, the recording does a nice job of introducing the deeper themes of the book and covering the major events. For school libraries that support an American literature curriculum, this recording offers a different interpretation of an enduring classic.<br /> <em>Barbara Wysocki, Cora J. Belden Library. Rocky Hill, CT </em><br /> Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p> <h3>From Library Journal</h3> <p>In a sense, this work is the piece de resistance of the textual revolution in American scholarship of the past generation. The first half is the final MLA "Approved Text" of the classic novel, prepared under the auspices of the Center for Editions of American Authors. The second half consists of an Historical Note detailing background, genetic composition, publication, and ensuing critical reception; a discussion of its textual history; and some relevant marginalia. The work is not only thorough and rigorous, but, considering the scholarly grittiness of the endeavor, surprisingly lucid and graceful in its exposition. Highly recommended for special collections. Earl Rovit, City Coll., CUNY<br /> Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>

Long considered Melville's strangest novel, "The Confidence-Man" is a comic allegory aimed at the optimism and materialism of mid-nineteenth century America. A shape-shifting Confidence-Man approaches passengers on a Mississippi River steamboat and, winning over his not-quite-innocent victims with his charms, urges each to trust in the cosmos, in nature, and even in human nature--with predictable results. In Melville's time the book was such a failure he abandoned fiction writing for twenty years; only in the twentieth century did critics celebrate its technical virtuosity, wit, comprehensive social vision, and wry skepticism. This scholarly edition includes a Historical Note offering a detailed account of the novel's composition, publication, reception, and subsequent critical history. In addition the editors present the twenty-six surviving manuscript leaves and scraps with full transcriptions and analytical commentary. This scholarly edition aims to present a text as close to the author's intention as surviving evidence permits. Based on collations of both editions publishing during Melville's lifetime, it incorporates 138 emendations made by the present editors. It is an Approved Text of the Center for Editions of American Authors (Modern Language Association of America).

<p>The Piazza Tales is a collection of six short stories by American writer Herman Melville, published by Dix &amp; Edwards in the United States in May 1856 and in Britain in June. Except for the newly written title story, "The Piazza," all of the stories had appeared in Putnam's Monthly in 1853-1855. The collection includes what has long been regarded as the author's three most important achievements in the genre of short fiction, "Bartleby, the Scrivener", "Benito Cereno", and "The Encantadas", his sketches of the Galápagos Islands.</p> <p>Melville had originally intended to entitle the volume Benito Cereno and Other Sketches, but settled on the definitive title after he had written the introductory story. The book received largely favorable reviews, with reviewers especially praising "The Encantadas".[1] but did not sell well enough to get Melville out of his financial straits,[2][3] probably because short fiction for magazines had little appeal to bookbuyers. From after Melville's rediscovery to the end of the twentieth century, the short works that attracted the most critical attention were "Bartleby," "Benito Cereno" and "The Encantadas," with "The Piazza" a little behind those.</p> <p>After reviewers denigrated Moby-Dick in 1851, Harper brothers changed the terms for its successor, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities.[4] Melville's London publisher Richard Bentley would not publish Pierre without alterations after he saw the American proofs in 1852, which Melville could not accept. Pierre found no British publisher and hence Melville received no advance payment in the summer of 1852. The reviews for Pierre were harsh, and this damaged Melville's reputation the more because the reviews followed upon the mixed reception of the whaling novel.</p> <p>In the spring of 1853 Melville could not get his next work printed, most likely, Sealts thinks, because Harper "simply refused to bring out another work by Herman Melville in the following year to risk the renewed wrath of already hostile reviewers".[6] Under the circumstances, publishing anonymously seemed an attractive strategy, and the firm did ask him to write for Harper's New Monthly Magazine. His contributions to that periodical were not collected in a book during his lifetime.</p> <p>In addition to the five stories, Melville wrote an introductory story for which the volume was titled. Scholar Douglas Robillard believes that this served the purpose of making the stories to appear "more closely joined than they actually are.</p> <p>"The contract for the book was signed on 17 March 1856, it was advertised on 5 April as "in press" and should have been available by 15 May--though a copy was deposited for copyright on May 20. The volume was printed by Miller &amp; Holman, Printers and Stereotypers, of New York, as a duodecimo volume of 431 pages, excluding seven pages of advertisements for other product by the same publishers.[21] Biographer Parker observes that to reach that number of pages the book was padded out by leaving excessive white space.[22] The front and back covers were ornamented by a border of rules and rosettes. The spine displayed the title, names of author and publishers stamped in gold, and the volume was priced at $1.00. In June the book was advertised together with another as "TWO GOOD SUMMER BOOKS".2,500 copies were printed, of which only 1,047 were sold by the end of August, not enough to cover expenses.</p> <p>In 1922, three years after the centennial of Melville's birth, the first reissue of the collection appeared as part of the Constable collected edition.</p> <p>"The Lightning-Rod Man" was chosen for inclusion in William Evans Burton's Cyclopediae of Wit and Humor of 1857, with an illustration by Henry Louis Stephens. No other original illustration for one of his works appeared during Melville's lifetime. Resissues of the book, under a variety of titles, appeared until 1898, making "The Lightning-Rod Man" the one Melville tale to be available throughout his lifetime</p> First published in 1856, five years after the appearance of Moby Dick, The Piazza Tales comprises six of Herman Melville's finest short stories. Included are two sea tales that encompass the essence of Melville's art: 'Benito Cereno,' an exhilarating account of mutiny and rescue aboard a disabled slave ship, which is a parable of man's struggle against the forces of evil, and 'The Encantadas,' ten allegorical sketches of the Galapagos Islands, which reveal nature to be both enchanting and horrifying. Two pieces explore themes of isolation and defeat found in Melville's great novels: 'Bartleby, the Scrivener,' a prophetically modern story of alienation and loss on nineteenth-century Wall Street, and 'The Bell-Tower,' a Faustian tale about a Renaissance architect who brings about his own violent destruction. The other two works reveal Melville's mastery of very different writing styles: 'The Lightning-Rod Man,' a satire showcasing his talent for Dickensian comedy, and 'The Piazza,' the title story of the collection, which anticipates the author's later absorption with poetry.