The Oxford Companion to English Literature | Melville, Herman
Melville, Herman
(
1819
–
91
), American novelist and poet, born in New York City, a product of the American mercantile gentry. After his father's business failure and death in
1832
, however,
Melville
left school and was largely an autodidact, devouring Shakespeare, the Authorized Version of the Bible, and 17th-cent. meditative writers such as
Sir
T.
Browne
, as well as the numerous historical, anthropological, and technical works which he used to supplement his experiences when he wrote. After sailing as a ‘boy’ on a packet to Liverpool in
1839
, Melville shipped in
1841
on the whaler Acushnet for the South Seas, where he jumped ship, joined the US navy, and finally returned three years later to begin writing.
The fictionalized travel narrative of Typee or A Peep at Polynesian Life (
1846
) was
Melville's
most popular book during his lifetime. Like most of his works, Typee was...
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