Herman Melville

Herman Melville (1819-1891), was an American novelist. “Moby Dick” (1851), his masterpiece, uses Captain Ahab’s relentless and fanatical pursuit of a great white whale to symbolize the conflict between man and fate, good and evil. Melville’s books were popular only briefly during his lifetime and were almost completely neglected for about three-quarters of a century. When rediscovered in the 1920’s, he was recognized as a major American author.

Melville was born in New York City. His merchant father died bankrupt when Herman was 12. He attended Albany Academy until he was 15, and then worked as a bank clerk, farmer, and teacher. At 17 he shipped as a cabin boy to Liverpool, probably to get away from his tyrannical mother. Melville describes this voyage, which gave him a love for the sea, in “Redburn” (1849). Returning in 1837, he taught school until 1840. Then he joined the crew of the whaler “Acushnet”. Harsh treatment caused him to jump ship at the Marquesas Islands, where he was held in friendly captivity for several weeks by Typee cannibals. His adventures are set down in Typee (1846) and Mardi (1849). Melville escaped on an Australian whaler, but left it at Tahiti. His stay there is reflected in Omoo (1847). After clerking in Hawaii, he served a year in the U.S. Navy. This gave him material for “White-Jacket” (1850), and for his last completed work, “Billy Budd”. (Though written before Melville’s death, “Billy Budd” remained unpublished until 1924.)

“Typee” made Melville famous, and he soon became prominent in New York literary circles. In 1847, he was married to Elizabeth Shaw, daughter of the chief justice of Massachusetts. After a visit to Paris and London, he lived 13 years at “Arrowhead”, a farm near Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Hawthorne was his neighbour, and “Pierre” (1852), a psychological study of guilt, suggests his influence on Melville. In 1853 a fire at his publisher’s destroyed the plates of Melville’s books and most of the unsold copies in stock. Melville’s popularity had already waned. His writing became tinged with pessimism, melancholy, and mysticism. After “Piazza Tales” (1856), short stories, he wrote verse. “Clarel” (1876), a long religious poem, was inspired by a pilgrimage to Palestine in 1856. In 1863 he moved to New York City, where he was a customs inspector, (1866-85).