Category: Classics

Lifespan: (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891)

Interesting & Unique Facts: Melville's first two books gained much attention, though they were not bestsellers, and his popularity declined precipitously only a few years later. Moby Dick is the primary reason Melville is still remembered today; it was re-discovered in the 20th century and is now considered a literary masterpiece.

Melville stayed on a farm in Pittsfield, Massachusetts for thirteen years. It was while he stayed here that Nathaniel Hawthorne and Melville became friends. The farm is now a museum.
For financial reasons, Melville was persuaded while in Pittsfield to enter the lucrative field of lecturing.

After an illness that lasted several months, Melville died at his home in New York City at the age of 72. His New York Times obituary called him "Henry Melville."

Author's work in order (with publication dates):

• Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846)
• Omoo: A Narrative of the South Seas (1847)
• Mardi: And a Voyage Thither (1849)
• Redburn: His First Voyage (1849)
• White-Jacket, or The World in a Man-of-War (1850)
• Moby-Dick, or The Whale (1851)
• Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852)
• Isle of the Cross (ca. 1853, since lost)
• The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles (1854)
• Benito Cereno (1855)
• Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (1856)
• The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857)
• Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative) (1924)

List of Melville's Short Stories with publication dates

The Piazza Tales (1856)

• The Piazza-- the only story specifically written for the collection. (The other five had previously been published in Putnam's Monthly Magazine.)
• Bartleby the Scrivener
• Benito Cereno
• The Lightning-Rod Man
• The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles
• The Bell-Tower

Uncollected

• Cock-A-Doodle-Doo! (Harper's New Monthly Magazine, December 1853)
• Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man's Crumbs (Harper's New Monthly Magazine, June 1854)
• The Happy Failure (Harper's New Monthly Magazine, July 1854)
• The Fiddler (Harper's New Monthly Magazine, September 1854)
• The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids (Harper's New Monthly Magazine, April 1855)
• Jimmy Rose (Harper's New Monthly Magazine, November 1855)
• The 'Gees (Harper's New Monthly Magazine, March 1856)
• I and My Chimney (Putnam's Monthly Magazine, March 1856)
• The Apple-Tree Table (Putnam's Monthly Magazine, May 1856)

Unpublished in Melville's lifetime

• The Two Temples
• Daniel Orme