Lecture 12: Melville

Herman Melville wrote one of the most important American novels, Moby-Dick, but at his death he was almost forgotten. The novel was rediscovered in the 1920s and began to gain more respect. After that, people began reading his other work with a more appreciative eye.

Herman Melville was born in New York in 1819, the third child of Allan Melville, a dealer in imported fabrics and perfumes. His mother, Marie Gansevoort, was the daughter of a prominent New York family. Melville's paternal grandfather, Thomas Melvill, took part in the Boston Tea Party. His maternal grandfather, General Peter Gansevoort, was the hero of the Saratoga campaign; his portrait was painted by Gilbert Stuart.

Melville's childhood was happy and secure. But in 1830, his father's business failed and the family moved to Albany. Unable to cope with his failure, Allan Melville broke down mentally and physically. He died in 1832, leaving his family in genteel poverty, dependent on Marie's family for financial support. Melville attended Albany Academy until 1834, when his family could no longer pay the bills. At age 12, he left school and went to work as a bank clerk. The work was boring and repetitive, and certainly influenced "Bartleby the Scrivener," which he wrote many years later. He later worked as a clerk in the family business, and then as a farm worker.

Bored and dissatisfied, he shipped out to Liverpool as a seaman on a merchant ship. When he returned 6 months later, he taught school for 3 years. But such a life was not for him: in 1841, he signed on for a 3-year whaling voyage on the Acushnet. He and a friend jumped ship in the Marquesas (now French Polynesia) and, while exploring the island, were taken prisoner by cannibals. They were rescued after several months and boarded an Australian whaler to Tahiti, then another whaler, Leviathan, to Honolulu. Melville enlisted in the Navy there and served on the frigate United States until he was mustered out of the Navy in 1844.

He went back home to his family in New York, where he began writing. His experiences provided the material for several novels and stories, among them Typee, Omoo, Mardi, White-Jacket, Moby-Dick, and Billy Budd. His first two novels, Typee and Omoo, were critical and commercial successes. In 1847, he married Elizabeth Shaw, daughter of Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, of Boston, and they moved to New York, where he made his living as a writer. In 1849, he published Mardi and Redburn, and then travelled to London to arrange for the publication of White-Jacket.

In 1850, he moved his family to a farm outside Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where his neighbor was Nathaniel Hawthorne. His friendship with Hawthorne was inspirational to him as he was writing Moby-Dick. Moby-Dick was at first intended to be simply another seafaing tale, but as Melville wrote, it became much more: darker, more symbolic, more complex. Melville exhausted himself writing it, working day and night, not eating until 5 or 6 in the afternoon. But when he was finished, he was ebullient: he knew it was a masterpiece.

The critics and the public disagreed. It was published in 1851, and the reviews were at best lukewarm. Few copies were sold. Almost no one understood what he was trying to do.

This was discouraging, but he went on to write his next novel, Pierre; or the Ambiguities. This was an even more dismal failure than Moby-Dick had been. It was disheartening, but also financially a disaster. For the next three years, Melville kept money coming in by writing short stories and essays, but it wasn't enough to support the family, and he had to ask his father-in-law for help.

During this time, Melville wrote "Bartleby the Scrivener." It was published anonymously in two installments in 1853 in Putnam's Monthly Magazine and later collected in Piazza Tales (1856).

Melville's next novel, Israel Potter was not even reviewed in the United States. The Confidence Man(1857) earned almost nothing. From 1857-1860, Melville supported his family mostly on fees he made from lecturing. In 1863, he moved his family back to New York, and in 1866, he took a job as District Inspector of Customs. He was almost completely forgotten in literary circles by now. During the next 25 years, he published only a few poems.

In 1885, he and his wife came into inheritances, and he retired from his Customs job and began again to write. Five months before his death, on September 18, 1891, he completed Billy Budd. It wasn't published until 1924.