Moby Dick and the life around it

Moby Dick was published on this day in 1851. It was Herman Melville's sixth book and his most ambitious, but it didn't sell, and the experience nearly destroyed him. Readers wanted roistering sea tales more than deep dish metaphors. Melville's family life suffered. He drank. His wife's relatives urged her to have him put in an asylum. In 1852 the New York Day Book published an article titled "Herman Melville Crazy." Perhaps he was. He continued writing. He wrote an epic poem of 16,000 lines, ...