Typee was Melville's first book, and made him one of the best-known American authors overnight. Typee is one of the first and arguably the most intelligent contemporary account of Western and Polynesian cultural interaction in the nineteenth century Pacific, and provided many...
In this classic of travel and adventure literature, Herman Melville drew upon his adventures in the South Pacific Marquesas Islands as a prisoner of the Typee people. Like the novel's narrator, Melville jumped ship from a whaling vessel and was held in benign captivity by an...
Six months at sea Yes, reader, as I live, six months out of sight of land; cruising after the sperm-whale beneath the scorching sun of the Line, and tossed on the billows of the wide-rolling Pacific-the sky above, the sea around, and nothing else Weeks and weeks ago our fresh...
"Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life" was Herman Melville's first novel and the work he was best known for during his own lifetime. Originally published in 1846, "Typee" was an immediate success and made Melville suddenly into a popular American author. The novel was partially...
The life and legacy of Herman Melville have taken on various incarnations in the nearly 200 years since he was born. When he died in 1891, Melville was remembered for his series of well-received works back in the mid-19th century, particularly his first novel Typee, a bestseller...
Based on Melville's actual experiences after having jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands, this work was extremely popular, and provoked disbelief among its readers until the events it described were corroborated by Melville's fellow castaway, Richard Greene. While the book is...
Typee is the first "romance" of the South Seas, a semi-autobiographical account of life in the Marquesas Islands in the 1840s. A blend of personal experience and the narratives of explorers and missionaries, it influenced many later writers on the Pacific, including Robert Louis...
This novel, the last one that Melville wrote, is set on a Mississippi steamer on April Fool's Day. A Young man, the devil in disguise, enters the steamer and during its voyage down the mighty river he starts confronting the passengers with their deepest fears and prejudices.