Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Hubris and Whales
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002RKRU9A/ref=cm_cr_rev_prod_img

Saying that Moby Dick is about whales is like saying the Old Testament is about keeping kosher. Whales are a very tiny amount of a complex whole.

First, it is about obsession. We think first of Ahab's obsession about killing the whale, but careful study of the book shows that there are many obsessions present. Contained within the obsession is that kind of hubris which challenges gods to do their worst.

Second, it is about piety and impiety, about religious belief and sacrilegious beliefs--beliefs plural, because there are idolaters aboard the ship.

But most important, it is about human beings. Everybody is distinguishable from everybody else, unlike many novels in which it is virtually impossible to tell who has what relationship with whom. It is realism of the American, Andrew Jackson, line, not of the European line.

Deconstructionists say that there is at least a hint of homosexuality in the book. They may be right; certainly Queequeg's calling Ishmael his wife is such a suggestion, even though there is no evidence that even Queequeg, much less Ishmael, ever acted upon such a suggestion. However, temporary homosexual activity even among normally heterosexual men is known to be, if not common, certainly not unheard of in any situation in which a group of males are isolated together, without access of any kind to women. A whaling ship, which might not touch land for two or three years, certainly was such an environment.

I cringe when I hear it described as an adventure novel. It is not one, and the abridged editions which remove all of Ishmael's comments which seem extraneous to the book should be burned and replaced with unabridged editions. Those "irrelevancies" are part of the heart and core of the book.

My husband, when at UCLA, was told by friends that Moby Dick was an extremely difficult book, so he decided, for the only time in his life, to buy Cliff Notes. Halfway through the Cliff Notes he decided that Moby Dick was the best novel ever written in any language. He threw away the Cliff Notes and settled down with the book. At the beginning, before the celebrated line "Call me Ishmael," there is a long series of quotations about whales, none of which are really about whales. He is of the opinion that you could remove whales from the book and still have a good novel, but you could not remove Ahab.

Hollywood has made at least two movies about Moby Dick. Both are good movies, but it is clear that the screenwriters did not grok the book.

I recommend this novel not to children, not to undergrads, not even to graduate students unless they are willing and able to take the time to study Moby Dick, using their own contexts as well as the context in which the author was working, to attempt to get a whole on some of the meanings of the text. This assumes that the reader understands that in so complex a novel, and there are few novels more complex, there is not one right meaning. There are multiple meanings which interweave themselves inextricably, while other meanings seem to grow up not from context or subtext but from intertextuality, particularly intertextuality the Bible and specifically the Old Testament.

This is not an easy novel. But it is one worth reading by a reader willing to put in the work necessary to comprehend it in part, realizing that comprehending it in toto is impossible for anyone.

Excellent.And it worked on my iTouch.
Having spent my teens and twenties with a paperback in my hip pocket, I'm still amazed that I can carry hundreds of books--big books if I want to--on the iTouch in my front pocket--I didn't have the problem with clipped words.That said, I feel that Moby Dick is a book that was waiting for me to read it.I didn't know how funny many parts of it are; for me, it was not a slog through a thick tome, but an adventure shared with others who have also read it.It stands the test of time and is very readable.Has it been waiting for you to read it?Now's the time.

(P.S. The iTouch Kindle app is also good for middle-of-the-night reading without waking my wife.)

Moby Dick - Kindle Edition
A classic.Who am I to criticize a literary great?The Kindle certainly helps - the dictionary is invaluable when reading a book written in "olde english" - being able to look up words I'd not seen before, while in the flow of reading, was invaluable.

Not properly formatting on iPhone
This version is not displaying properly on my iPhone, using Kindle iPhone app. Words are cut off either side of screen.

Exaclty Almost The Same
I listened to the audio cds on this book and there are only a few different words. if you are going to buy this book. mine as well get the same thing for free! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Cryptic short-thought journals...excellent scholarly backup.
These journals present one of the few areas (for me)
in which Melville is less than he might be, but the
scholarly backup provided by the main editor for
this volume, Howard C. Horsford, ably assisted by
Lynn Horth, G. Thomas Tanselle, Harrison Hayford,
and Alma A. MacDougall fills out the volume with
a wealth of "Discussions" (notes to mentioned items
in the texts of the journals -- these notes go from
page 250 to page 542), "Textual Notes" (not very
interesting except to persons interested in the
picayune details of Melville's underlinings,
spellings, cross-outs, etc.), -- but then, the
editors supply a section titled "Melville's
Agricultural Tour Memorandum (1850)", "Melville's
Notes in Hawthorne's _Mosses_ [From An Old Manse],
and "Melville Abroad: Further Records (1849-1860)".
Many of the "Discussions" items are very interesting
and informative, but the excellent additions are the
drawings, photos, and photo-copies which enrich
the text and the references.There is a photo
of the 5 manuscript notebooks used for his journals
on p. 210 of this volume; there is a photo of
Melville and his youngest brother Thomas, captain of
the ship _Meteor_ on p. 196; there are also maps
such as the one on p. 248 of Melville's European
Route 1849-1850, Melville's Mediterranean Route
1856-1857 on p. 380.
The drawings in the volume are very interesting
and fine.There are personal drawings and photocopies
of personal letter entries that show the "human" side
of Melville and his family.On p. 642 there is
Melville's own drawing of his home and fields at
"Arrowhead" (outside of Pittsfield, Mass.); there
is a photo of Melville's children on p. 637 --
frail, thin looking Stanwix, Malcolm looking off
into the distance, and Elizabeth looking glumly
at the camera.It follows a chilling (from the
apparent lack of warmth, but maybe only from the
inability to express it to his own children) letter
which Melville wrote to his son Malcolm while on
his Pacific voyage of 1860.Here is an excerpt
from that letter on pp. 636-637: "I hope that you
have been obedient to your mother, and helped her
all you could, & saved her trouble.Now is the
time to show what you are -- whether you are a good,
honorable boy, or a good-for-nothing one.Any boy,
of your age, who disobeys his mother, or worries her,
or is disrespectful to her -- such a boy is a poor
shabby fellow; and if you know any such boys, you ought
to cut their acquaintance."Knowing that this son
Malcolm committed suicide several years later,
at home, in his bedroom, gives this letter a chilling
bit of resonant context.
The journals included in this volume are: "Journal
of a Voyage from New York to London 1849," "Journal
1856-1857" (of his trip to Glasgow, to Liverpool -- where
he had that most interesting meeting with Hawthorne
and the resulting walk and talk in the sand dunes;
to Constantinople, to Alexandria and Cairo, then
to Jaffa, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea (from which he
would later write _Clarel_), to Athens, to Sicily,
to Naples, to Rome, to Florence, to Venice, Milan,
Turin, Genoa, Berne, Strasbourgh, Heidelburgh,
Frankfort, Cologne, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and
London, and a trip to Oxford ("Most interesting spot
I have seen in England.Made tour of all colleges.
It was here I first confessed with gratitude my
mother land, & hailed her with pride. *** Soul &
body equally cared for. *** I know nothing more
fitted by mild & beautiful rebuke to chastise the
ranting of Yankees."), Stratford, Warwick, and back
to Liverpool. The final Journal is the one of 1860,
"kept on board ship "Meteor" ...From Boston to
San Francisco."
Some of Melville's notes are brief and cryptic,
and one is at loss to know what appears to be a
personal, secretive note to jog his memory at some
later time.Some of the drawings included which I
found interesting were of the Hotel de Cluny,
Ehrenbreitstein, a full image photo of the statue
of Antinous at the Capitoline Museum ("G.S. Hillard
described the Antinous as 'not merely beautiful' but
'beauty itself' --from note on p. 465), the relief
of Antinous at the Villa Albani, the Athena at the
Villa ALbani.
What surprises one from the journals is an awareness
of how much walking, smoking of cigars, and drinking of
various kinds of alcoholic beverages Melville did on
his trips.But then there are also the interesting
people he met such as the young man he dined with
who gave him a flower. Melville was also a lover of
opera, good food in cheap restaurants, and a grumbler
about hotels with crawly critters in the bed clothes.
All in all this is interesting country to travel
through, but more from what its suggests and causes
the imagination to mull over rather than the fully
written text about his travels.Like many, perhaps,
the experience was the thing to be treasured and
remembered, rather than to be rendered into a fully
articulated prose recounting as a creative work itself
(such as Thoreau's journals, or Hawthone's notebooks). ... Read more

Product Description
Herman Melville is one of the most challenging authors of American literature. Known primarily as the author of Moby-Dick, he wrote several other novels, short stories, and poems. This volume is a comprehensive guide to his life and work. Included are hundreds of entries for his writings, characters, family members, friends, and acquaintances. The volume identifies characters from Melville's works, and entries on the most important topics include bibliographies. ... Read more

Product Description
With energetic prose and a gift for relating colorful detail, Laurie Robertson-Lorant presents a richly written biography of Herman Melville, whose life of adventure, struggle, and moral conflict mirrored the themes in his writing, including his masterpiece of world literature, Moby Dick. 40 illustrations.Amazon.com Review
HermanMelville's goal as an author was to become one of the"thought-divers that have been diving and coming up again withbloodshot eyes since the world began." The source of this rathermelodramatic approach to the art and craft of writing was a life thatencompassed the whaling era and the Civil War and included time spentin Polynesia, where he was flogged, fled from cannibals, joined amutiny, and frolicked with naked islanders. The result was a body ofwork that ranged from popular fiction (Typee) to thedreadful gothic romance (Pierre) to theclassic MobyDick. Working with 500 family letters found in 1983, LaurieRobertson-Lorant provides a compelling, multifaceted portrait of oneof America's most intriguing literary figures. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

The best Melville biography currently available
Unlike Hershel Parker's, Laurie Robertson-Lorant's Melville biography provides a brilliant historical narrative that shows the broad sweep of 19th-century American history, giving a vivid picture of all the issues which Melville addresses in his fiction and poetry. Since it also is an insightful critique of each of Melville's writings, Dr. Robertson-Lorant's Melville biography should be on the bookshelves ofall students and lovers of American literature, history and biography.

Best Melville biography currently available
Unlike Hershel Parker's, Laurie Robertson-Lorant's Melville biography provides a brilliant historical narrative that shows the broad sweep of 19th-century American history,giving a vivid picture of all the issues which Melville addresses in his fiction and poetry.Since it also is an insightful critique of each of Melville's writings, Dr. Robertson-Lorant's Melville biography should be on the bookshelves of all students and lovers of American literature, history and biography.

Horrible
Laurie Robertson-Lorant's one-volume biography of Herman Melville is stunningly bad.In fact, it just may be the worst piece of historical writing I've ever come across.

This book was listed as "suggested reading" for a class I took on Moby Dick at Stanford University, which celebrated the 150th anniversary of that American classic.In fairness to the professor, he cautioned that he had not read "Melville" himself and strongly recommended the lengthy two-volume biography by Hershel Parker for those seriously interested in the life and times of the author.Relative brevity, it seems, is this book's only virtue.

Robertson-Lorant is a high school teacher and one can't help but wonder if one of her students actually wrote this book - and not a very talented one at that.The writing is tendentious, the footnoting extremely sloppy, and the structure jagged and disjointed.Not only is the style bad; the author also consistently manages to foul up some of the most basic details of American history, such as the roots of the term "Barnburner" and the circumstances behind the outbreak of the Mexican-American War, to name just a very few.

Undoubtedly, Herman Melville is one of the more interesting 19th century American novelists.His early adventures traveling the world on a Navy ship and whaler is fascinating, and the story of his early success and fame with "Typee" and his long, slow decline into frustrating obscurity thereafter is poignant and tragic. One thing is for certain: his life deserves better treatment than this.

Excellent reading aboutMelville and his works
This is the best Melville Biography currently available. It is not only well researched and presented, but also and this is very important especially in literary biographies, quite readable and accessible, especially when compared to the ponderous effort by Hershel Parker. The biography is also well-balanced presenting informative chapters from throughout Melville's life. This must have been quite difficult to do, especially for Melville's later years, as there are few primary sources available. The information about Meville's often eccentric and tragic family and family life is also most interesting adding breadth. While other Melville biographers have concentrated too much on the interpretation of "Moby-Dick", often offering nothing new, Robertson-Lorant gives the reader relevant information on all of Melvile's work, including his for many readers little known poetry. When interpretations are given, for "Moby-Dick" for example, they are on the mark. Here she makes an intertesting comparison between the three mates (Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask) and the three harpooners (Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo) in which the three "savages" become more "noble" than their white ships' officers. The biography concludes with an interesting analysis of Melville's sexuality. On the down side, there are some errors. For example, on the Civil War the contentions that Lee was surrounded at Gettysburg, or that one third of the participants on both sides were killed, (p.453) are just plain wrong. Luckily other errors are not so common as to detract the reader. In conclusion, I recommend this biography highly. It is accessible to both leisurly readers and persons knowledgable about Melville and his works. It is also reasonably priced.

A brilliant, sensitive life of America's finest writer.
With extraordinary skill, brilliance, and sensitivity, Laurie Robertson-Lorant gives us the one-volume life of Herman Melville we've always needed.She ably mixes extensive research in the primary sources (including the recently discovered Gansevoort-Lansing family papers now held by The New York Public Library) with close and attentive reading of Melville's works and the contemporary reactions to them.In addition, nearly always steering clear of the clanky jargon of modern literary criticism, she nonetheless draws on cutting-edge work in that field, in particular the insights of feminist literary criticism, to illuminate our understanding of this remarkable figure who was arguably America's finest writer.Readers should devote special attention to Robertson-Lorant's superb appendix on Melville's sexuality, which is a model of how a modern biographer should address such controversial and frequently-trivialized issues.

If I have one complaint, it is that Robertson-Lorant is shaky on legal contexts, both of Melville's father-in-law, the noted Massachusets jurist Lemuel Shaw, and of the writer's final work, BILLY BUDD, SAILOR.I wish in particular that Robertson-Lorant had used some of the cutting-edge scholarship in the field of Law & Literature, in particular Richard Weisberg's fine book THE FAILURE OF THE WORD:THE LAWYER AS PROTAGONIST IN MODERN FICTION (Yale University Press, rev. ed. 1989).BILLY BUDD, SAILOR is a central work for this field, and arguments over Melville's intentions continue to rage on -- but they appear only fleetingly and tangentially in Robertson-Lorant's pages.

But these quibbles are comparatively minor.Laurie Robertson-Lorant's biography should be *the* biography of choice for anyone interested in Herman Melville's life and work.(It is far more accessible, nuanced, and lucidly argued than is Hershel Parker's long-awaited, mammoth two-volume life now in progress; Volume I is little better than a pile of facts heaped together.)

-- Richard B. Bernstein Adju! nct Professor of Law, New York Law School; Daniel M. Lyons Visiting Professor in American History, Brooklyn College/CUNY (1997-1998); Book Review Editor for Constitutional Books, H-LAW; Senior Research Fellow, Council on Citizenship Education, Russell Sage College ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (5)

bewildered
my mistake! i didn't realise pages were 3 1/4" x 6". need a magnifier to read miniscule print. I'll read fine print in ad next time.

Moby-Dick
My son was very pleased with this book. It is a classic in hardcover and lives up to it's reputation.

Tiny book
I was not expecting this book to be so small. It is in great condition and very nicely done. Just be prepared for small print. It made a fun stocking stuffer for Christmas.

BUYER BEWARE
This book is TINY! It's actually even smaller than the product details state (3.5" wide, NOT 4.1"). I already ordered a bigger copy from a different publisher, and I'm considering trying to return this one. I'm just not sure if the hassle is worth the $10 I spent.

Why they would try to cram a 600+ page novel into a package this small is beyond me. It's an uncomfortable read to say the least. Also, the gold edges cause the pages to stick together. I made it through the first two chapters and gave up.

There are plenty of other editions on amazon. I'd recommend avoiding this one.

You will enjoy this great classic.
Herman Melville is a great writer. I hope you will enjoy this classic. My words can not express the detail in his writing. Amazon shipping was fast. Book arrived in perfect condition. Great value at this site. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The best...
...series of American poetry anthologies, easily. Almost a thousand pages of verse per volume, excellent selections, helpful biographies and notes. Volumes One and Two are better still as their contents were selected exclusively by the peerlessly tasteful John Hollander, who wisely gives about half the space to the half-dozen greats (Whitman, Dickinson, Emerson, Melville, Longfellow, Bryant). These are among the best volumes of the invaluable Library of America series. Volumes Three and Four, covering the early 20th Century, are also available here and superb. Read these four through and this year will be twice as rich as last year. ... Read more

Product Description
In Billy Budd, The Bell-Tower, and Bartleby the Scrivener, Herman Melville explores in miniature the themes of isolation and defeat found in his great novels. Among his best works, they respectively deal with the irony of tragedy, arrogance, and failing communication.

The title, Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Benito Careno, Bartleby the Scrivener, and Other Tales, part of Chelsea House Publishers’ Modern Critical Interpretations series, presents the most important 20th-century criticism on Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Benito Careno, Bartleby the Scrivener, and Other Tales through extracts of critical essays by well-known literary critics.This collection of criticism also features a short biography on Herman Melville, a chronology of the author’s life, and an introductory essay written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Office Without a View
Melville's darkly curious novella about a mysterious new hire
who refuses to leave his place of employment--even when dismissed--is subtly compelling; the conflict is revealed
gradually in small, psychological increments.This story, which could just as well have been set in Victorian London, is related by an elderly narrator--a lawyer with two regular scriveners (legal copyists) and an office boy.But the addition of the inscrutable, pallid Bartleby creates a sensation in the small office.He quietly but simply refuses to do anything but copy documents, eventually disintegrating to not even that. Yet he will not leave; he "prefers not" to do anything but waste time and waste away.How can his decent, compassionate employer remove the unwanted fellow, without resorting to crass police intervention?

Melville's unchaptered tale is characterized by with long paragraphs and a rich tapestry of vocabulary. Less a mystery than one at first expects, the simple plot unfolds eventually to comment on the role of humanity. How easy it would be to assuage our collective conscience by institutionalizing the misfits.This may be the first literary example of Passive Resistance. With no clear cut villain in this seemingly actionless tale, readers are left in moral disquiet, yet this short work provides a glimpse into Melville's dark genius.

Classic
Herman Melville's "Bartleby" is undoubtedly one of the finest short stories known in the canon of Western literature. It is the story of a stubborn, yet ultimately passive scrivner (copyist) that despite his individuality has alienated himself from society. Melville contemplates whether a true individual can really function or even survive in society.

This story, while delightful and original, can get bogged down in the rigid, almost archaic English. Some readers will be ultimately find this too cumbersome and but the book down. However, many readers will grow accustomed to the language and, it is charming. If you haven't read Melville or think that he might be too stuffy, or too distant, think again. His humor and his originality are to be appreciated and maybe even admired in this hum-drum age of tired sitcoms. ... Read more

Product Description
This collection contains 17 novels and short fiction by acclaimed writer Herman Melville, including 'Moby Dick' and 'Bartleby, The Scrivener.'Includes an active table of contents.

Contents:

Typee
Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas
Mardi Vol. I
Mardi Vol. II
Redburn: His First Voyage
White-Jacket
Moby Dick
Israel Potter
The Confidence-Man
Billy Budd
The Piazza
Bartleby, The Scrivener
Benito Cereno
The Lightning-Rod Man
The Encantadas
The Bell-Flower
I and My Chimney
... Read more

Product Description
The text of The Confidence-Man reprinted here is again that of the first American edition (1857), slightly corrected. The Second Edition features significantly expanded explanatory annotations, particularly of biblical allusions.

"Contemporary Reviews" includes nineteen commentaries on The Confidence-Man, eight of them new to the Second Edition. Better understood today are the concerted attacks on Melville by, especially, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, and Methodist reviewers.

A new section, "Biographical Overviews," embodies the transformation of knowledge about Melville's life that has occurred over the last three decades. This section provides a wide range of readings of Melville's life by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Dennis Marnon, and Hershel Parker, among others.

"Sources, Backgrounds, and Criticism" is thematically organized to inform readers about movements and social developments central to Melville's America and to this novel, including utopias, cults, cure-alls, Transcendentalism, Indian hating, the Bible, and popular literature.A Selected Bibliography is also included.

About the Series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Vote of no confidence
This, the last Herman Melville novel published during the author's lifetime, is not his best work. It's a great theme -- how confidence is necessary for personal success and a thriving market economy yet subject to abuse -- that could have been dealt with much more succintly. The book could have been 15 to 20 chapters instead of the 45 that it is (although most of the chapters are short). Melville also punishes the readers with many dependent clauses. The great man could certainly have used an editor here.
But it's still Melville thus "The Confidence Man" inevitably sparkles at times. But the suggested time scale makes the book highly improbable. There's no way a single man could pull off so many cons on a single boat trip down the Mississippi River. Had "The Confidence Man" done his "business" during several trips over several years then that would have been credible. But 30-something cons during a single voyage without being detected by the ship's crew? No sale.
Had Melville made things shorter and more believable with a postscript added as to what the Civil War did to American optimism then the book may have become a classic.
For a lesser author "The Confidence Man" would have been a great achievement. But for Melville it pales beside "Moby Dick" and "Billy Budd."
The politically astute may notice Melville mentions Cape Girardeau, Missouri, hometown of "conservative" commentator Rush Limbaugh, the greatest Republican Party confidence man of the post-WW II era. Nice foreshadowing, Herman!

A Classic Exploration of Trust and the Con
Why read a book from 1857 which flopped so badly as commercial literature that Melville stopped writing and ended his career as a customs official? Because this book masterfully explores the entire nature of trust, confidence and cons. Though the setting is a riverboat on the Mississippi River just before the U.S. exploded into Civil War, its insights cross cultural boundaries.

This is not an easy book to read for several reasons. First, it is undoubtedly one of the first "post-modern" novels which breaks from traditional narrative storytelling. ( Another example: Dostoevsky's Notes From the Underground.) The Confidence-Man is a collection of 45 conversations between various people on the riverboat--beggars, absurdly dressed frontiersmen, sickly misers, shysters, patent medicine hucksters, veterans (of the Mexican-American War) and the "hero" in the latter part of the book, the Cosmopolitan.

In typical Melville fashion, you also get asides--directly to the reader, in several cases, as if Melville felt the need to address issues of fiction outside the actual form of his novel. The lack of structure, action and conclusion make this a post-modern type book, but if you read each conversation as a separate story, then it starts to make more sense.

For what ties the book together is not a story but a theme: the nature of trust and confidence. In a very sly way, Melville shows how a variety of cons are worked, as the absolutely distrustful are slowly but surely convinced to do exactly what they vowed not to do: buy the "herbal" patent medicine, buy shares in a bogus stock venture, or donate cash to a suspect "charity."

In other chapters, it seems like the con artist is either stopped in his tracks or is conned himself. Since the book is mostly conversations, we are left to our own conclusions; there is no authorial voice wrapping up each chapter with a neatly stated ending. This elliptical structure conveys the ambiguous nature of trust; we don't want to be taken, but confidence is also necessary for any business to be transacted. To trust no one is to be entirely isolated.

Melville also raises the question: is it always a bad thing to be conned? The sickly man seems to be improved by his purchase of the worthless herbal remedy, and the donor conned out of his cash for the bogus charity also seems to feel better about himself and life. The ornery frontiersman who's been conned by lazy helpers softens up enough to trust the smooth-talking employment agency owner. Is that a terrible thing, to trust despite a history of being burned?

The ambuiguous nature of the bonds of trust is also explored. We think the Cosmopolitan is a con-man, but when he convinces a fellow passenger to part with a heavy sum, he returns it, just to prove a point. Is that a continuance of the con, or is he actually trustworthy?

The book is also an exploration of a peculiarly American task: sorting out who to trust in a multicultural non-traditional society of highly diverse and highly mobile citizens. In a traditional society, things operate in rote ways; young people follow in their parents' traditional roles, money is made and lent according to unchanging standards, and faith/tradition guides transactions such as marriage and business along well-worn pathways.

But in America, none of this structure is available. Even in Melville's day, America was a polyglot culture on the move; you had to decide who to trust based on their dress, manner and speech/pitch. The con, of course, works on precisely this necessity to rely on one's senses and rationality rather than a traditional network of trusted people and methods. So the con man dresses well and has a good story, and an answer for every doubt.

The second reason why Melville is hard to read is his long, leisurely, clause upon clause sentences. But the book is also peppered with his sly humor, which sneaks up on you... well, just like a good con.

A book and edition which redefine "fabulous"
As Melvillians will know (and as new readers will discover), this is an astoundingly modern work in the guise of an 'older' style.Re-reading it in this new edition is especially rewarding:abundant and illuminating notes, essays, and reviews in a beautifully produced book make for a very rich reading experience -- I got much more out of this reading than from earlier encounters with other editions.Highly recommended.

The Confidence Game:From All Angles
"The Confidence Man" was Melville's last novel.Like all his novels except "Moby Dick" it was a commercial failure.It is purported to be Melville's personal favorite of his own creation.

Melville takes a very special position in this book.He is an active author who directly interacts with the reader.The book is especially intricate and disguised.Melville tried to show the `Confidence Game' from all angles.He illustrates those performing the game, those who are victims of the game, and those who are just side players in the game.

In a brilliant fashion, Melville creates his text in such a way so as to leave the reader wondering just who is the player and who is the victim.He recognizes that his uniquely obtuse style in this book is particularly nebulous to the reader.In a technique that is rarely used by any author, Melville directly addresses the reader in two chapters.His words help the reader reach the conclusions that are elucidated.

In the book, Melville seems to try to explain the essence of the Game; in a very interesting manner.He seems to be saying that `All people are seeking confidence.They are either seeking self-confidence, or they are seeking the confidence of others, or they are preying on other people's confidence.'With this basic premise, Melville shows how the Game is executed and how manipulative it can be.There is no lack of the psychological in this book.Melville writes almost exclusively about the mental machinations that are utilized to play the Game effectively.

The book is highly recommended to those who are interested in the workings of the human mind and how those operations can be persuasive and even dangerous.It is a true classic in every sense of the word.It should not be overlooked.
... Read more

Product Description

Herman Melville was an intense and tortured writer, plagued by writing anxiety, emotional problems, and painful physical ailments. He produced his extraordinary body of work only with great anguish, and he appears to have inflicted great anguish on those around him. According to Elizabeth Renker, we learn much about Melville's fiction if we see how violent and frustrating the experience of writing was for him.

In Strike through the Mask Renker argues that Melville's frustrated engagement with the page--characterized by illegible handwriting, chronically bad spelling, and violent manipulations of text--is the most important source of his work's drama and power. She examines the impact on his writing of his struggles with writer's block and depression. And she explores Melville's complex relationship with women, particularly his wife and sisters, on whom he depended to copy and correct his manuscripts.

Renker sees Melville's experience of writing reflected in his haunting and enduring theme of disturbing, impenetrable faces. Ahab's famous desire to "strike through the mask" of the dead, blind "pasteboard" wall echoes Melville's own relentless striking through and rewriting in his private battle with the blank page.

"There is... the uncomfortable suggestion that Melville physically and emotionally abused his wife. One letter reveals that Elizabeth Melville's minister proposed a feigned kidnap to spirit her away from husband and home... Those interested must turn to Elizabeth Renker's... Strike Through the Mask." -- Times Literary Supplement

"Herman relied on [his wife] and his sisters to copy out his illegible manuscripts; those very manuscripts, with his violent revisions, displayed his hostility toward them. And this new view of the relationship, [Renker] said, must change the way we view his work." -- Philip Weiss, New York Times Magazine

"A fascinating new perspective on Melville's career. From a meticulous scrutiny of the material and visual features of Melville's manuscripts, Renker develops the connections between Melville's works and his strenuous work of composing them." -- Gillian Brown, University of Utah

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Product Description
This adventure tale was based on Melville's own experiences as a sailor in the south Pacific. In it, the hero and his shipmate, Toby, stumble into the cannibal kingdom of Typee. When the friendly Typees force the pair to stay, the tale's hero must decide whether to remain in luxury with his captors or escape to American civilization. ... Read more