Books by Herman Melville

A new, definitive edition of Herman Melville's virtuosic short stories-American classics wrought with scorching fury, grim humor, and profound beauty Though best-known for his epic masterpiece Moby-Dick, Herman Melville also left a body of short stories arguably unmatched in American fiction. In the sorrowful tragedy of Billy Budd, Sailor; the controlled rage of Benito Cereno; and the tantalizing enigma of Bartleby, the Scrivener; Melville reveals himself as a singular storyteller of tremendous range and compelling power. In these stories, Melville cuts to the heart of race, class, capitalism, and globalism in America, deftly navigating political and social issues that resonate as clearly in our time as they did in Melville's. Also including The Piazza Tales in full, this collection demonstrates why Melville stands not only among the greatest writers of the nineteenth century, but also as one of our greatest contemporaries. This Penguin Classics edition features the Reading Text of Billy Budd, Sailor, as edited from a genetic study of the manuscript by Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Sealts, Jr., and the authoritative Northwestern-Newberry text of The Piazza Tales. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Collected in this volume are Bartleby the Scrivener, Benito Cereno, and Billy Budd-presented in the best texts available, those published during Melville's lifetime and corrected by the author.

From A to Z, the Penguin Drop Caps series collects 26 unique hardcovers—featuring cover art by Jessica HischeIt all begins with a letter. Fall in love with Penguin Drop Caps, a new series of twenty-six collectible and hardcover editions, each with a type cover showcasing a gorgeously illustrated letter of the alphabet. In a design collaboration between Jessica Hische and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, the series features unique cover art by Hische, a superstar in the world of type design and illustration, whose work has appeared everywhere from Tiffany & Co. to Wes Anderson's recent film Moonrise Kingdom to Penguin's own bestsellers Committed and Rules of Civility. With exclusive designs that have never before appeared on Hische's hugely popular Daily Drop Cap blog, the Penguin Drop Caps series debuted with an 'A' for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a 'B' for Charlotte Brönte's Jane Eyre, and a 'C' for Willa Cather's My Ántonia. It continues with more perennial classics, perfect to give as elegant gifts or to showcase on your own shelves.M is for Melville, who wrote of his masterpiece, "It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it." In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopedia of whaling lore and legend, Moby-Dick is a haunting, mesmerizing, and important social commentary populated with several of the most unforgettable and enduring characters in literature. Written with wonderfully redemptive humor, Moby-Dick is a profound and timeless inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.

Contents: Benito Cereno; Bartleby the Scrivener; The Encantadas or Enchanted Isles; Billy Budd, Foretopman.

This is an accurate version of Melville's final novel. Based on a close analysis of the manuscript, thoroughly annotated and packaged with history of the text and perspectives for its criticism.

Herman Melville's Mardi (1849) has stood the test of time as a superb allegorical fantasy, and as the third in a trilogy reflecting on Melville's experiences on the sea. Set on a fictional Pacific island, this adventure, love story, and exploration of the metaphysical sets the stage for later writers in the twentieth century who delve into the psychological.

A collection of poems by Herman Melville, featuring selections from "The Battle Pieces", "Clarel", "John Marr and Other Sailors", and pieces he had in planning, such as those about the so-called "Burgundy Club" and a collection of verses dedicated to his wife.

Moby Dick is the story of Captain Ahab's quest to avenge the whale that 'reaped' his leg.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.

Presents a tale of one obsessed captain, his doomed crew and an elusive white whale named Moby-Dick.

`Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.' So wrote Melville of Billy Budd, Sailor, among the greatest of his works and, in its richness and ambiguity, among the most problematic. The selection in this volume represents the best of Melville's shorter fiction, and uses the most authoritative texts. The eight shorter tales included here were composed during Melville's years as a magazine writer in the mid 1850's and establish him, along with Hawthorne and Poe, as the greatest American story writer of his age. All show Melville a master of irony, point-of-view, and tone, whose fables ripple out in ever increasing circles of meaning. Bartleby, the Scrivener; Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!; The Fiddler; The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids; The Lightning-Rod Man; The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles; Benito Cereno; I and My Chimney; Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative).

Male, female, deft, fraudulent, constantly shifting: which of the masquerade' of passengers on the Mississippi steamboat Fid le is the confidence man'? The central motif of Melville's last and most modern' novel can be seen as a symbol of American cultural history.

"Herman Melville (1819-1891) stopped writing fiction after the publication of The Confidence Man: His Masquerade ] in 1857; as he entered his forties, he turned to poetry as his literary avocation. Hi"

Classic / British EnglishMoby Dick is the most dangerous whale in the oceans. Captain Ahab fought him and lost a leg. Now he hates Moby Dick. He wants to kill him. But can Captain Ahab and his men find the great white whale? A young sailor, Ishmael, tells the story of their exciting and dangerous trip.

When Ishmael sets sail on the whaling ship Pequod one cold Christmas Day, he has no idea of the horrors awaiting him out on the vast and merciless ocean. The ship's strange captain, Ahab, is in the grip of an obsession to hunt down the famous white whale, Moby Dick, and will stop at nothing on his quest to annihilate his nemesis.

The text of The Confidence-Man reprinted here is again that of the first American edition (1857), slightly corrected.

"I prefer not to," he respectfully and slowly said, and mildly disappeared.Academics hail it as the beginning of modernism, but to readers around the world-even those daunted by Moby-Dick-Bartleby the Scrivener is simply one of the most absorbing and moving novellas ever. Set in the mid-19th century on New York City's Wall Street, it was also, perhaps, Herman Melville's most prescient story: what if a young man caught up in the rat race of commerce finally just said, "I would prefer not to"?The tale is one of the final works of fiction published by Melville before, slipping into despair over the continuing critical dismissal of his work after Moby-Dick, he abandoned publishing fiction. The work is presented here exactly as it was originally published in Putnam's magazine-to, sadly, critical disdain.The Art of The Novella Series Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.

The classic story of Moby Dick, the whale pursued relentlessly by the crazed Captain Ahab.

PUBLISHED TO COINCIDE WITH THE BECENTENARY OF HORACE WALPOLE'S DEATH Horace Walpole was letter writer so energetic and fertile that his collected correspondence occupies forty volumes.