HERMAN MELVILLE (1819-1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick. His first three books gained much contemporary attention (the first, Typee, becoming a bestseller), and after a fast-blooming literary success in the late 1840s, his popularity declined precipitously in the mid-1850s and never recovered during his lifetime. When he died in 1891, he was almost completely forgotten. It was not until the "Melville Revival" in the early 20th century that his work won recognition, especially Moby-Dick, which was hailed as one of the literary masterpieces of both American and world literature. He was the first writer to have his works collected and published by the Library of America.
This collection, the most complete edition to date of Melville's extant correspondence, gives access to the life and writings of one of our finest novelists. While the letters to his family deal in a perfunctory manner with the details of everyday life, the letters written between 1846 and 1852 to Evert Duyckinck and Nathaniel Hawthorne reveal the creative and critical genius that mark Melville's best work. The letters are arranged chronologically, and each is preceded by an editorial headnote placing it in the context of Melville's career. An appendix provides historical notes and reveals the textual apparatus used in the selection and location of the texts. This work, the penultimate volume in the definitive Northwestern-Newberry edition of Melville's writings, builds upon and surpasses the Merrell R. Davis-William H. Gilman edition of The Letters of Herman Melville (Yale Univ. Pr., 1960). Highly recommended.-- Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Westerville P.L., Ohio
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