Herman Melville \nHerman Melville (August 1 1819 - September 28 1891) was a U.S novelist, essayist, and poet. During his own lifetime his early novels, South Seas adventures, were quite popular, but his audience declined later in his life. By the time of his death he had nearly been forgotten, but his masterpiece, Moby-Dick, was "rediscovered" in following years and he is now widely esteemed one of the most important figures in American literature. Melville is also among the finest prose stylists America has produced—his peers might include William Faulkner, Henry James, and Thomas Pynchon.
Melville was a friend of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and was influenced by the latter's writing; Moby-Dick is dedicated to Hawthorne. 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, and later became a New York City Customs agent. His short novel Billy Budd, an unpublished manuscript at the time of his death, was later published successfully and was turned into an opera by Benjamin Britten.
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. Rarely among poets, he did not write any substantial poetry until late in his life; after the Civil War, he published Battle-Pieces, which sold well. But once again tending to outrun the tastes of his readers, Melville's poetic masterpiece, the epic length verse-narrative Clarel, about a student's pilgrimage to the Holy Land, was also quite unknown in his own time.\n----\nParaphrased from the introduction written by Arthur Stedman to the 1892 edition of Melville's Typee:
Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1, 1819, and\nreceived his early education in that city. He says he gained his\nfirst love of adventure listening to his father Allan, who was an extensive traveller for his time, telling tales of the monstrous waves at sea, mountain high, of the masts bending like twigs, and all about Le Havre and Liverpool. After the death of his father the family (eight brothers and\nsisters) moved to the village of Lansingburg, on the Hudson River. \nThere Herman remained until 1835, when he attended the Albany\nClassical School for some months.
Herman's roving disposition, and a desire to support himself\nindependently of family assistance, soon led him to ship as cabin\nboy in a New York vessel bound for Liverpool. He made the\nvoyage, visited London, and returned in the same ship. 'Redburn:\nHis First Voyage,' published in 1849, is partly founded on the\nexperiences of this trip.
A good part of the succeeding three years, from 1837 to 1840, was\noccupied with school-teaching.
I fancy that it was the reading of Richard Henry Dana's 'Two\nYears Before the Mast' which revived the spirit of adventure in\nMelville's breast. That book was published in 1840, and was at\nonce talked of everywhere. Melville must have read it at the\ntime, mindful of his own experience as a sailor. At any rate, he\nonce more signed a ship's articles, and on January 1, 1841,\nsailed from New Bedford, Massachusetts harbour in the whaler Acushnet, bound for\nthe Pacific Ocean and the sperm fishery. He has left very little\ndirect information as to the events of this eighteen months'\ncruise, although his whaling romance, 'Moby Dick; or, the Whale,'\nprobably gives many pictures of life on board the Acushnet. \nMelville decided to abandon the vessel on reaching the Marquesas\nIslands; and the narrative of 'Typee' and its sequel, 'Omoo,' tell this tale.
After a sojourn at the Society Islands, Melville shipped\nfor Honolulu. There he remained for four months, employed as a\nclerk. He joined the crew of the American frigate United States,\nwhich reached Boston, stopping on the way at one of the Peruvian\nports, in October of 1844. Once more was a narrative of his\nexperiences to be preserved in 'White Jacket; or, the World in a\nMan-of-War.' Thus, of Melville's four most important books,\nthree, 'Typee,' 'Omoo,' and 'White-Jacket,' are directly auto\nbiographical, and 'Moby Dick' is partially so; while the less\nimportant 'Redburn' is between the two classes in this respect.
\nMelville married Miss Elizabeth Shaw on August 4,\n1847, in Boston, whereupon his nautical wanderings were brought to a\nconclusion. Mr. and Mrs. Melville resided in New York City until\n1850, when they purchased a farmhouse at Pittsfield.\nHere Melville remained for thirteen years, occupied with his\nwriting, and managing his farm. An article in Putnam's Monthly\nentitled 'I and My Chimney,' another called 'October Mountain,'\nand the introduction to the 'Piazza Tales,' present faithful\npictures of Arrow Head and its surroundings.
While at Pittsfield, Mr. Melville was induced to enter the lecture field. From 1857 to 1860 he filled many engagements in the lyceums, chiefly speaking of his adventures in the South Seas.
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. \n----
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