Herman Melville

Author profile

born

August 01, 1819 in New York City, New York, The United States

died

September 28, 1891

gender

male

genre

Literature & Fiction, Poetry, Short Stories

About this author

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Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. His first two books gained much attention, though they were not bestsellers, and his popularity declined precipitously only a few years later. By the time of his death he had been almost completely forgotten, but his longest novel, Moby-Dick — largely considered a failure during his lifetime, and most responsible for Melville's fall from favor with the reading public — was rediscovered in the 20th century as one of the chief literary masterpieces of both American and world literature.

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Herman Melville. (2007, October 19). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:03, October 19, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_M...

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Books by Herman Melville

Average rating: 3.34 · 238,354 ratings · 6,306 reviews · 199 distinct works

	Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, Tom Quirk (Commentary), Andrew Delbanco (Introduction) 3.32 avg rating — 213,664 ratings — published 1851 — 204 editions	My rating:
	Bartleby, the Scrivener (Art of the Novella) 3.81 avg rating — 7,836 ratings — published 1853 — 130 editions	My rating:
	Billy Budd, Sailor 2.91 avg rating — 5,419 ratings — published 1924 — 94 editions	My rating:
	Billy Budd and Other Stories by Herman Melville, Frederick Busch (Introduction) 3.41 avg rating — 1,358 ratings — published 1986 — 6 editions	My rating:
	Benito Cereno by Herman Melville, Wyn Kelly (Editor) 3.62 avg rating — 1,284 ratings — published 1855 — 26 editions	My rating:
	Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life by Herman Melville, John Bryant (Introduction, Commentary) 3.47 avg rating — 1,214 ratings — published 1907 — 47 editions	My rating:
	Bartleby and Benito Cereno by Herman Melville, Stanley Appelbaum (Editor), Dover Thrift Editions 3.76 avg rating — 856 ratings — published 1990 — 4 editions	My rating:
	The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville, Tony Tanner (Editor), John Dugdale (Editor) 3.71 avg rating — 814 ratings — published 1857 — 82 editions	My rating:
	Herman Melville : Redburn, White-Jacket, Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, G. Thomas Tanselle (Editor), G. Thomas Melerlle (Editor) 4.10 avg rating — 374 ratings — 2 editions	My rating:
	Pierre or the Ambiguities by Herman Melville (author), Maurice Sendak (illustrator), Hershel Parker (editor) 3.64 avg rating — 390 ratings — published 1852 — 31 editions	My rating:

More books by Herman Melville…

Quotes by Herman Melville

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”
― Herman Melville

tags: connection

618 people liked it

“Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

tags: religion , sobriety

146 people liked it

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”
― Herman Melville

tags: success

141 people liked it

See all Herman Melville's quotes »

Polls

Which book would you like to read for our August-September discussion?

Stone Butch Blues A Novel by Leslie Feinberg

6 votes, 18.2%

Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson

6 votes, 18.2%

Alone in the Trenches My Life As a Gay Man in the NFL by Esera Tuaolo

5 votes, 15.2%

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

4 votes, 12.1%

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

3 votes, 9.1%

Dancer from the Dance A Novel by Andrew Holleran

3 votes, 9.1%

Sprout by Dale Peck

3 votes, 9.1%

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

2 votes, 6.1%

The Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd

1 vote, 3.0%

The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine

0 votes, 0.0%

Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville

0 votes, 0.0%

Straight Lies by Rob Byrnes

0 votes, 0.0%

33 total votes

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Herman Melville

Author profile

combine editionsBooks by Herman Melville

Quotes by Herman Melville

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

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Books by Herman Melville