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Herman Melville

Herman Melville was born in New York City in 1819. When his father died, he was forced to leave school and find work. After passing through some minor clerical jobs, the eighteen-year-old young man shipped out to sea, first on a short cargo trip, then, at twenty-one, on a three-year South Sea whaling venture. From the experiences accumulated on this voyage would come the material for his early books, Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847), as well as for such masterpieces as Moby-Dick (1851), Pierre (1852), The Piazza Tales (1856), and Billy Budd, Sailor, and Other Stories (posthumous, 1924). Though the first two novels—popular romantic adventures—sold well, Melville's more serious writing failed to attract a large audience, perhaps because it attacked the current philosophy of transcendentalism and its espoused "self-reliance." (As he made clear in the savagely comic The Confidence Man (1857), Melville thought very little of Emersonian philosophy.) He spent his later years working as a customs inspector on the New York docks, writing only poems comprising Battle-Pieces (1866). He died in 1891, leaving Billy Budd, Sailor, and Other Stories unpublished.
Billy Budd, Bartleby, and Other Stories
Moby-Dick
Moby- Dick
Moby-Dick
Billy Budd and Other Tales
Israel Potter
Four Classic American Novels
Omoo
Selected Poems of Herman Melville
The Confidence-Man
Moby-Dick
Redburn
Tales, Poems, and Other Writings
Typee
The Piazza Tales
Moby-Dick
Complete Shorter Fiction of Herman Melville
Typee
Pierre
Four Great American Classics
The Confidence-Man
Billy Budd, Sailor, and Other Stories

Books

Billy Budd, Bartleby, and Other Stories
Moby-Dick
Moby- Dick
Moby-Dick
Billy Budd and Other Tales
Israel Potter
Four Classic American Novels
Omoo
Selected Poems of Herman Melville
The Confidence-Man
Moby-Dick
Redburn
Tales, Poems, and Other Writings
Typee
The Piazza Tales
Moby-Dick
Complete Shorter Fiction of Herman Melville
Typee
Pierre
Four Great American Classics
The Confidence-Man
Billy Budd, Sailor, and Other Stories

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