Herman Melville
Regarded as one of the greatest novellas ever written, Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener follows a nondescript law clerk, Bartleby, who takes a stand against the tyranny of modern life and makes an art form out of nonconformity in the process. A must-read for fans of classic American literature.
2) Moby Dick
"Typee: A Romance of the South Seas" by Herman Melville is a classic adventure novel set in the South Pacific. The protagonist, Ishmael, joins a whaling ship and becomes shipwrecked on the island of Typee. He lives among the Typee tribe and experiences their unique culture and way of life, falling in love with a beautiful native girl. However, Ishmael must make a choice between staying with the tribe or returning to civilization. The novel blends
...Typee is a fictional, but heavily autobiographical book by Herman Melville. Based on his own three weeks as a captive on Nuku Hiva, Melville's protagonist spends four months trapped on the island. Melville also fleshed out the story with details provided by contemporary explorers. The book was his most popular during his lifetime and provided significant groundwork for later tales of European and Pacific cultures meeting.
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.
...7) Billy Budd
Written some 40 years after Moby Dick, Herman Meville’s Billy Budd is a moving tale of good versus evil. Set aboard a British navy ship at the end of the eighteenth century, a young, innocent sailor’s charm and good nature put the men around him at ease. Ship-life agreed with Billy. He made friends quickly and was well liked, which infuriated John Claggart, the ship’s cold-blooded superior officer. Mutiny was a continual
...8) Bartleby
9) Moby Dick
10) Moby Dick
11) The Piazza Tales
12) The Piazza
Melville’s ‘Bartleby’ is a classic American short story, a strange tale of an assiduous copyist whose catch-phrase is ‘I would prefer not to.’ It is joined here by two other stories from The Piazza Tales, Melville’s idiosyncratic collection: ‘The Lightning-Rod Man’ and ‘The Bell Tower’.
15) Benito Cereno
In his ninth and final novel, cultural observer, novelist, and poet Herman Melville gives us a picture of everything wrong with America in the decade preceding the Civil War.
Evoking Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, this is a story of interlocking tales from a group of steamboat passengers traveling down the Mississippi toward New Orleans. Aboard the Fidèle can be found all manner of con man, from those selling stock in failing
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