Typee : A Peep at Polynesian Life

At one time the most popular of Melville's works, Typee was known as a travelogue that idealized and romanticized a mysterious South Sea island for readers in the ruthless, industrial, "civilized " world of the nineteenth century. But Melville's story of Tommo, the Yankee sailor who enters the flawed Pacific paradise of Nuku Hiva, is also a fast-moving adventure tale, an autobiographical account of the author's own Polynesian stay, an examination of the nature of good and evil, and a frank exploration of sensuality and exotic ritual. This edition of Typee, which reproduces the definitive text and the complete, never-before-published manuscript reading text, includes invaluable explanatory commentary by John Bryant.

Herman Melville (1819-91) was an American novelist, short-story writer, lecturer, and poet. Melville worked as a bank clerk, a clerk in a cap and fur store, a teacher, a sailor, an author, a farmer, and finally as a customs inspector. Besides his masterpiece, Moby-Dick, his books include Omoo (the sequel to Typee), The Confidence-Man, White-Jacket, Pierre, and The Piazza Tales. Melville died in obscurity at the age of seventy-two