LITMIR.BIZ

Billy Budd, Sailor is a novella by American writer Herman Melville left unfinished at Melville's death in 1891. Acclaimed by critics as a masterpiece when a hastily transcribed version was finally published in 1924, it quickly took its place as a classic second only to Moby-Dick among Melville's works. Budd is a «handsome sailor» who strikes and inadvertently kills his false accuser, Master-at-arms John Claggart. The ship's Captain, Edward Vere, recognizes the innocence of Budd's intent but the law of mutiny requires him to sentence Billy to be hanged. Melville began work on it in November 1886, revising and expanding from time to time, but left the manuscript in disarray. Melville's widow Elizabeth began to edit the manuscript for publication, but was not able to decide her husband's intentions at key points, even his intended title. Raymond M. Weaver, Melville's first biographer, was given the manuscript and published the 1924 version, which was marred by misinterpretation of Elizabeth's queries, misreadings of Melville's difficult handwriting, and even inclusion of a preface Melville had cut. Melville scholars Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Sealts Jr. published what is considered the best transcription and critical reading text in 1962. In 2017, Northwestern University Press published a «new reading text» based on a «corrected version» of Hayford and Sealts' genetic text prepared by G. Thomas Tanselle.

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Este ebook presenta «Moby Dick», con un indice dinámico y detallado. Moby-Dick es una novela de Herman Melville publicada en 1851. Narra la travesía del barco ballenero Pequod en la obsesiva y autodestructiva persecución de una gran ballena blanca (cachalote) impulsada por el capitán Ahab. Al margen de la persecución y evolución de sus personajes, el tema de la novela es eminentemente enciclopédico al incluir detalladas y extensas descripciones de la caza de las ballenas en el siglo XIX y multitud de otros detalles sobre la vida marinera de la época. Quizá por ello la novela no tuvo ningún éxito comercial en su primera publicación, aunque con posterioridad haya servido para cimentar la reputación del autor y situarlo entre los mejores escritoires estadounidenses. Herman Melville (1819 – 1891) – novelista y poeta norteamericano y una de las principales figuras de la historia de la literatura. Con apenas veinte años, Melville comenzó una serie de viajes por todo el mundo que más adelante le servirían como base e inspiración para varias de sus novelas, incluyendo varios años trabajando como ballenero y pasando varias aventuras en las islas del Pacífico. El mar y su mundo son fundamentales en la obra de Melville, como ya se aprecia en Mardi o Taipi.

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"Moby-Dick", Herman Melville's classic 1851 novel is the story of a wandering sailor by the name of Ishmael and his voyage aboard the whaling ship the «Pequod», which is commanded by Captain Ahab, a man who is obsessed with the capture of a single white whale of enormous size and ferocity. «Moby-Dick» is a novel rich with symbolism and full of complex themes including the examination of social classes and the struggle of good versus evil. While having been met with mixed reviews upon its first publication, «Moby-Dick» has since been recognized as one of the greatest works in the English language and has secured Melville's place in literary history.

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"Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life" was Herman Melville's first novel. Originally published in 1846, «Typee» was partially based on Melville's own experiences as a beachcomber in the South Pacific Marquesas Islands. A romanticized travelogue of the Pacific island paradise Nuku Hiva, «Typee» is the story of Tommo, a Yankee sailor and his four month stay on the island. One of Melville's most popular works during his lifetime, «Typee» gives the reader a captivating look into the cultures and traditions of the natives living in the islands of the South Pacific.

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Herman Melville (1819-1891), now at the center of the American literary canon, was wildly dismissed for this labyrinthine effort. With the Boston Post writing upon its release, «it might be supposed to emanate from a lunatic hospital rather than from the quiet retreats of Berkshire.» Perhaps Melville's most difficult and wildly textured work, «Pierre: Or, The Ambiguities», (1852) to this day evades easy categorization or critical interpretation. Now seen as an ambitious foray into proto-modernist composition, the text was initially met with utter consternation and was a commercial failure. Published a year after his magnum opus «Moby Dick, or, The Whale», «Pierre» tracks the nineteen year old Pierre Glendinning through his life in New York City as a fledgling novelist. Mr. Melville himself can be seen in the melodramatic life of Pierre. Wrestling with the literary trends of transcendentalism that pervaded his day, the novel, on some level, also parodies the gothic tradition of grand morality. But it is this morality that is brought into focus, scrutinizing it only as Melville can. Spoken of as «word piled upon word, and syllable heaped upon syllable, until the tongue grows as bewildered as the mind, and both refuse to perform their offices from sheer inability to grasp the magnitude of the absurdities…», the torrential dismay that this novel was met with now sounds like the unknown beginnings of a revolution. Experimental and without reservations, «Pierre» will remain a glowing oddity of American literature.

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Widely believed to be among Melville's most popular works, «Redburn, His First Voyage» follows the young Wellingborough Redburn on his first journey at sea. A boy just on the verge of manhood, Redburn's decision to become a sailor is apparently at odds with his gentle upbringing, which has made him in many ways unprepared for the hardships of his chosen profession. He is unmercifully initiated into the life of a sailor by his fellow crewmen, a trying juxtaposition to his unalloyed wonder at the ocean and of England. Once landed in Liverpool, his innocence is tested by the harsh living and vice he witnesses. Melville skillfully guides Redburn through his coming of age in this semiautobiographical novel of the joys and hardships of manhood at sea.

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"The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade" is the 1857 novel of Herman Melville which tells the interlocking stories of a group of travelers aboard a steamboat on the Mississippi River making their way toward New Orleans. The novel, which emulates the style of Chaucer's «Canterbury Tales», centers on its title character, the Confidence-Man, a mysterious figure who sneaks aboard the steamboat and successively tests the confidence of the passengers. In so doing the masquerades of the passengers are exposed and their true natures are revealed. A satirical and allegorical set of tales, «The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade» is a rich exposition on the nature of human identity set against the vivid imagery of the Mississippi riverboat era.

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Based on Melville's own experiences in the Society Islands of the South Pacific, «Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas» is the story of an unnamed narrator who ships aboard a whaling vessel which makes its way to Tahiti. Following a mutiny, most of the crew, along with the narrator, are imprisoned on the island of Tahiti. The book follows the narrator as he makes his way around the island remarking on the way of life and customs of the natives as he goes. «Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas» is the sequel to Melville's hugely successful «Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life».

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