Benito Cereno
by Herman Melville
- 8 Members Following
Follow a topic to see new activity, such as homework help questions and answers, in your personal feed on the homepage.
Navigate
See Also
- Theory of Short Fiction (Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition)
- Herman Melville (Critical Survey of Poetry: American Poets)
- Herman Melville (Cyclopedia of World Authors, Fourth Revised Edition)
- Herman Melville (Dictionary of World Biography: The 19th Century)
- Herman Melville (Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Fourth Edition)
- Herman Melville (Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Herman Melville
- First Published: 1855
- Type of Work: Short story
- Genres: Long fiction, Adventure, Sea story, Novel
- Subjects: Murder or homicide, Slavery or slaves, Eighteenth century, Ships, Sailing or sailors, Sea or seafaring life, Adventure, Diseases, South America or South Americans, Peru or Peruvians, Harbors, Mutiny
- Locales: Peru, South America, Lima, Peru, Chile
The Work
Melville’s story “Benito Cereno” was originally published serially in three parts. There is some indication that he considered making it into a novel but was discouraged by his potential publisher. Melville drew much of his material from Amaso Delano’s A Narrative of Voyages and Travels in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres (1817); in fact, much of the court deposition material is transcribed exactly from the original.
The story is set in August of 1799 off the coast of Chile, where the “singularly undistrustful” captain of an American...
(The entire page is 994 words.)
Want to read the whole thing?
Subscribe now to read the rest of this article. Plus, get access to:
- 30,000+ literature study guides
- Critical essays on more than 30,000 works of literature from Salem on Literature (exclusive to eNotes)
- An unparalleled literary criticism section. 40,000 full-length or excerpted essays.
- Content from leading academic publishers, all easily citable with our "Cite this page" button.
- 100% satisfaction guarantee READ MORE
