Herman Melville

Herman Melville was born to a well-off family in New York City in 1819, where he was schooled until his father’s early death in 1832. In 1839 he became a sailor on a merchant ship, and by 1840 Melville made his way onto a whaling vessel, giving him valuable experience that he’d later write about in his first two novels, Typee (1845) and Omoo (1847), adventure stories which were massive commercial successes. Melville returned from the sea to the United States in 1844, docking in Boston. Around this time Melville married Elizabeth Shaw, and the couple had their first child in 1849, the same year that his third and fourth novels, Mardi and Redburn, were both released to little financial success (although Redburn did receive some critical acclaim). In 1850, Melville moved his family to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he struck up a friendship with author Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom he eventually dedicated his massive novel Moby-Dick, released in 1851 to critically mixed reviews and financial failure. His next novel, Pierre, released in 1852, was another dud in terms of sales, and led to the end of Melville being considered a popular novelist during his lifetime. Melville then wrote short stories, which were published in magazines, including Bartleby, the Scrivener, The Encantadas, and Benito Cereno. Through the rest of his life, Melville wrote two more novels, and he also traveled to Europe and then East Asia before returning to the United States to take a post as a customs inspector in New York. Towards the end of his life Melville wrote poetry, including a collection focused on his concerns about the morality of the civil war called Battle-Pieces and Aspects of War, released in 1866. In 1867, Melville’s oldest son died from a self-inflicted gun shot to the head. Melville’s next published work was 1876’s Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land, which dealt with metaphysical and epic themes. In 1886 Melville’s second son, Stanwix, died, causing Melville to retire from his post as a customs inspector. During his final years until his death of cardiovascular disease in 1891, Melville privately published two volumes of poetry and returned to writing prose (although he never published it). Melville’s novella Billy Budd, unfinished at his death, was published posthumously in 1924.