Herman Melville (1819-1891)
Full Name: Herman Melville
Date of Birth: August 1, 1819
Place of Birth: New York City
Date of Death: September 28, 1891
Brief Life Story: Herman Melville’s writings have granted him worldwide renown since his death, at the end of the 19th century, but he was read only fitfully by the American public during his lifetime, and his greatest literary achievements were received with a mixture of puzzlement and disregard. Coming from a relatively well-to-do New York family, with aristocratic connections on his mother Maria Gansevoort’s side, Melville’s father Allan lost a great deal of money when Herman was a young man. As a result, Melville attended several schools in New York State, but never learned any one trade. He taught high school in various New York State locations, and later decided to try his fate on the open sea as a sailor, much as his narrator Ishmael does in Moby Dick. Melville gathered material on several long sea voyages, which was fictionalized later in the novels Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847). These novels established Melville’s early reputation as a writer of adventures—a reputation Melville could not shake during his life, even as his work grew stranger, and became infused with philosophical and religious themes. Melville married in 1847 and began work on a series of other fiction projects, including Moby Dick, which was completed in 1851, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Melville befriended fellow novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne during this period, and dedicated Moby Dick to him. The novel, now widely viewed as one of the greatest in the English language, earned mixed reviews upon its publication. Melville’s other, later works, including Pierre, Benito Cereno, and The Confidence-Man, did even worse among the reading public. To earn money in later life, Melville took a job in a customs house. He died in 1891, and his reputation among American writers was not rehabilitated fully until the early 1900s.
Date of Birth: August 1, 1819
Place of Birth: New York City
Date of Death: September 28, 1891
Brief Life Story: Herman Melville’s writings have granted him worldwide renown since his death, at the end of the 19th century, but he was read only fitfully by the American public during his lifetime, and his greatest literary achievements were received with a mixture of puzzlement and disregard. Coming from a relatively well-to-do New York family, with aristocratic connections on his mother Maria Gansevoort’s side, Melville’s father Allan lost a great deal of money when Herman was a young man. As a result, Melville attended several schools in New York State, but never learned any one trade. He taught high school in various New York State locations, and later decided to try his fate on the open sea as a sailor, much as his narrator Ishmael does in Moby Dick. Melville gathered material on several long sea voyages, which was fictionalized later in the novels Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847). These novels established Melville’s early reputation as a writer of adventures—a reputation Melville could not shake during his life, even as his work grew stranger, and became infused with philosophical and religious themes. Melville married in 1847 and began work on a series of other fiction projects, including Moby Dick, which was completed in 1851, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Melville befriended fellow novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne during this period, and dedicated Moby Dick to him. The novel, now widely viewed as one of the greatest in the English language, earned mixed reviews upon its publication. Melville’s other, later works, including Pierre, Benito Cereno, and The Confidence-Man, did even worse among the reading public. To earn money in later life, Melville took a job in a customs house. He died in 1891, and his reputation among American writers was not rehabilitated fully until the early 1900s.
Moby Dick
It was much later in life that Melville wrote his most popular work, Moby-Dick (initially titled The Whale), which was first published in 1851. Moby-Dick, categorized as American Romanticism, is based on both Melville's years of experience aboard whaleships and the real-life sinking of the Essex whaleship: Traveling from Nantucket, Massachusetts, to South America—a two-and-a-half-year journey at the time—the Essex reportedly met its doom in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in November 1820, when a sperm whale turned on the ship, attacking it and causing it to sink. The ship's crew, adrift in their small whaleboats, faced storms, thirst, illness and starvation, and were even reduced to cannibalism for survival. However, succeeding in one of the great open-boat journeys of all time, the few survivors were picked up off South America. Their story, spread widely in America in the 19th century, eventually provided inspiration for Melville's Moby-Dick.
Moby-Dick has received commercial and critical acclaim for nearly a century. However, Melville didn't live to witness that success. In fact, the book didn't bring him any wealth or respect during his lifetime. Early critics were unimpressed by the novel; an 1851 article in the Illustrated London News called it "Herman Melville's last and best and most wildly imaginative story," and a testament to his "reckless imaginative power." The article went on to note Melville's "great aptitude for quaint and original philosophical speculation, degenerating, however, too often into rhapsody and purposeless extravagance."
Readers weren't enamored either, according to book sales: Only about 500 copies of Moby-Dick were reportedly sold in the United Kingdom following its release—nearly 25 percent less than Melville's Typee.
Moby-Dick has received commercial and critical acclaim for nearly a century. However, Melville didn't live to witness that success. In fact, the book didn't bring him any wealth or respect during his lifetime. Early critics were unimpressed by the novel; an 1851 article in the Illustrated London News called it "Herman Melville's last and best and most wildly imaginative story," and a testament to his "reckless imaginative power." The article went on to note Melville's "great aptitude for quaint and original philosophical speculation, degenerating, however, too often into rhapsody and purposeless extravagance."
Readers weren't enamored either, according to book sales: Only about 500 copies of Moby-Dick were reportedly sold in the United Kingdom following its release—nearly 25 percent less than Melville's Typee.