Herman Melville

Don Benito faltered; then, like some somnambulist suddenly interfered with, vacantly stared at his visitor, and ended by looking down on the deck. He maintained this posture so long, that Captain Delano, almost equally disconcerted, and involuntarily almost as rude, turned suddenly from him, walking forward to accost one of the Spanish seamen for the desired information. But he had hardly gone five paces, when with a sort of eagerness Don Benito invited...

Herman Melvilles "Moby Dick" gehört zu den großen Klassikern der Weltliteratur. Dieses monumentale Werk aus dem 19. Jahrhundert liegt nun in einer hochwertigen deutschen Übersetzung als E-Book vor. Der Roman erzählt die Geschichte der Mannschaft des Walfängers Pequod, die sich auf die gnadenlose Jagd nach dem weißen Pottwal Moby Dick begibt. Angetrieben von einer selbstzerstörerischen Besessenheit, hetzt Kapitän Ahab die Crew über die Weltmeere,...

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading.Although most people do not think of Herman Melville as a particularly funny writer, his "Bartleby, the Scrivener" and The Confidence Man have kept readers laughing for a century and a half. "Bartleby" is a simultaneously accurate and absurd depiction of life in a Wall Street office in the middle of the nineteenth century. It is the gentle comedy of a boss' helpless...

Considered to be the least characteristic of Melville's stories, somewhat resembling the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, "The Bell-Tower" is a dark literary work that explores, though never fully reveals, its central mystery. An eccentric artist and architect dreams up plans for a magnificent bell tower. After receiving approval from the city, he happily begins construction. When city residents begin to notice strange occurrences...

Chosen for inclusion in William Evans Burton's Cyclopediae of Wit and Humor of 1857, with an illustration by Henry Louis Stephens, "The Lightning-Rod Man" was the one Melville tale to be available throughout his lifetime, thanks to reissues of this volume. More a parable than a character-driven story, The Lightning-rod man is a charlatan who tries to profit by selling fearful people lightning rods during thunderstorms. The narrator has a difficult...

"Bartleby" oder "Bartleby der Schreiber" ist eine Erzählung des amerikanischen Schriftstellers Herman Melville, die unter dem Originaltitel Bartleby the Scrivener veröffentlicht wurde. Es ist das erste Werk, das Melville nach Moby Dick verfasste, und wurde zunächst anonym im November und Dezember 1853 in zwei Teilen in der Zeitschrift Putnam's Monthly Magazine veröffentlicht. Ein älterer Anwalt und Notar berichtet als Ich-Erzähler von einem...

"American writer Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick in 1851 but it took decades before finally it was regarded as a great American novel, and worthy of its place amongst the greatest texts of humankind. It recounts the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of a whaling ship seeking vengeance on Moby Dick, the white whale that had bitten off Ahab's leg on a previous voyage. FLAME TREE's Great Works That Shape Our World is a new series of definitive books...

Best known as the creator of Captain Ahab and the great white whale of Moby-Dick, Herman Melville (1819–91) found critical and popular success with his first novels, which he based on his adventures in the South Seas. His reputation was diminished by his preoccupation with metaphysical themes and allegorical techniques in later works; and by the time of his death, his books were long forgotten. Generations later, Melville's readers recognized his...

Herman Melville's epic tale of obsession and vengeance on the high seas, Moby-Dick, or The Whale was not initially successful when it was first published in 1851 but later went on to become one of the most widely read and critically acclaimed novels in literary history. Narrated by the sailor Ishmael, who signs up to go to sea aboard the whaling ship the Pequod, the story recounts the mad quest by the single-minded Captain Ahab to find and kill...

White-Jacket (1850) is an adventure novel by American writer Herman Melville. Based on the author's personal experience as a seaman in the United States Navy-Melville spent fourteen months aboard the USS United States-the novel was both commercially successful and influential for reforming US Naval policy. Following its publication, and aided by advocacy from journalists and politicians, flogging was banned as a punishment in the navy. The novel is...