• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • FREE short summaries for all!

Book Summary

booksummary.net

  • Home
  • Summaries
  • Analyses
  • Characters
  • Biographies
  • Books


Read original fairy tales >>

Herman Melville

Herman Melville (1819-1891) was a great novelist, short story writer and poet during the American Renaissance. His works explored psychological and metaphysical themes. During the last 30 years of his life, much of his writing had slipped into obscurity, only to be brought out and celebrated in 1919, the centennial of his birth.

Melville had an ample supply of adventures to use in his writing. He started out as a cabin boy, sailed the South Seas on a whaler, deserted his ship and lived among cannibals for 18 months. Escaping aboard and Australian trader, Melville made it to Tahiti, where he spent some time in prison.

From there he sailed to Hawaii where he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. After being discharged in 1844. Melville joined writing groups in Boston and New York and began to write about his experiences.

His first book, "Typee" was about his adventures, and did so well, he wrote a sequel. Although, "Omoo" did well, his books began to lose their following. A prolific writer, he was not financially successful. "Moby Dick", one of Melville's most acclaimed novels in this time, was not a best seller.

He was practically an unknown author. His book, "Israel Potter" (1855). an historical romance, is still barely read. Shortly after completing "Billy Bud, Sailor" Herman Melville died. He left a great body of work that has grown in importance every year since it's reemergence during the 1920's.

Moby Dick

Summary  Herman Melville

In 1851 Herman Melville published the story of a whale and the mad man who hunted it. He originally titled it "The Whale", but later changed the name to "Moby Dick". It was a failure and out of print at the time of his death 40 years later. But, then during the 20th century it […]

Primary Sidebar

Top Writers

Albert Camus Alexander Pushkin Alexandre Dumas Anton Chekhov Arthur Conan Doyle Art Spiegelman Barbara Kingsolver Bible Brothers Grimm Charles Dickens Charles Perrault Clive Staples Lewis Dante Alighieri Edgar Allan Poe Emile Zola Erich Kästner Ernest Hemingway Eugene Ionesco Euripides Gabriel Garcia Marquez Hans Christian Andersen Jane Austen Joseph Jacobs Mark Twain Michael Coleman Nikolai Gogol Oscar Wilde Ovid William Faulkner William Shakespeare

Recent

  • 1984
  • A Christmas Carol
  • A Christmas Carol Analysis
  • A Christmas Carol Characters
  • A Christmas Carol Summary
  • A Clockwork Orange
  • A Farewell to Arms
  • A Hero of Our Time
  • A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • A Rose for Emily Analysis
  • A Rose for Emily Characters
  • A Rose for Emily Summary
  • A Separate Peace
  • A Streetcar Named Desire

Study guides

  • Analyses
  • Characters
  • Summaries
  • Biographies
  • Books

Footer

Information

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Index of Writers
  • Digital Books

Study guides

  • Book Analyses
  • Book Summaries
  • Character Analyses
  • Biographies

BookSummary.net

The largest collection of book summaries, analyses, books, study guides and educational resources for students and teachers. Here, you'll find works from more than 250 greatest authors of all time. [more]

Copyright © 2016–2023 · KnowHow Network / Mastermind · All rights reserved