Herman Melville An Introduction

This unique introduction explores Herman Melville as he described himself in Billy Budd-"a writer whom few know." Moving beyond the recurring depiction of Melville as the famous author of Moby-Dick, this book traces his development as a writer while providing the basic tools for successful critical reading of his novels.

Wyn Kelley is a Senior Lecturer in the Literature Faculty at MIT. She is the author of Melville's City: Literary and Urban Form in Nineteenth-Century New York (1996) and editor of A Companion to Herman Melville (Blackwell, 2006) and an edition of Benito Cereno 2006, and has also written a number of essays on Melville. She is Associate Editor of the Melville Society journal Leviathan.

Texts and Abbreviations	p. ix
List of Illustrations	p. x
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Preface	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Melville's Life	p. 3
"Agatha" and the Invention of Narrative	p. 12
Melville's Early Yarns	p. 25
"Making Literary Use of the Story": Typee and Omoo	p. 27
"A Regular Story Founded on Striking Incidents": Mardi, Redburn, and White-Jacket	p. 42
Writing New Gospel in Moby-Dick and Pierre	p. 55
"So Much of Pathos & So Much of Depth": Moby-Dick	p. 57
"All Tender Obligations": Pierre	p. 83
Turning a New Leaf: Short Fiction, Israel Potter, and The Confidence-Man	p. 95
"A Leaf from Professional Experience": Short Fiction of the 1850s	p. 97
"Peculiarly Latitudinarian Notions": Israel Potter and The Confidence-Man	p. 123
Melville's Later Career	p. 135
"Fulness & Veins & Beauty": Battle-Pieces and Clarel	p. 137
"Different Considerations": Late Poetry	p. 160
"Instinct with Significance": Billy Budd	p. 175
Afterword: "Restoring To You Your Own Property": Owning Melville	p. 188
The "Agatha" Correspondence	p. 191
Notes	p. 200
Bibliography	p. 206
Index	p. 217
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Herman Melville An Introduction

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials