Great Short Works of Herman Melville

by Herman Melville

Billy Budd, Sailor and Bartleby, the Scrivener are two of the most revered shorter works of fiction in history. Here, they are collected along with 19 other stories in a beautifully redesigned collection that represents the best short work of an American master.As Warner Berthoff writes in his introduction to this volume, "It is hard to think of a major novelist or storyteller who is not also a first-rate entertainer . . . a master, according to choice, of high comedy, of one or another robust species of expressive humour, or of some special variety of the preposterous, the grotesque, the absurd. And Melville, certainly, is no exception. A kind of vigorous supervisory humour is his natural idiom as a writer, and one particular attraction of his shorter work is the fresh further display it offers of this prime element in his literary character."

The town-ho's story --
Bartleby, the scrivener : a story of Wall-Street --
Cock-a-doodle-doo! or, The crowing of the noble cock Beneventano --
The encantadas or Enchanted Isles --
The two temples --
Poor man's pudding and rich man's crumbs --The happy failure : a story of the river Hudson --
The lightning-rod man --
The fiddler --
The paradise of bachelors and the tartarus of maids --
The bell-tower --
Benito Cereno --
Jimmy Rose --
I and my chimney --
The 'Gees --
The apple-tree table, or Original spiritual manifestations --
The piazza --
The Marquis de Grandvin --
Three "Jack Gentian sketches" --
John Marr --
Daniel Orme --
Billy Budd, sailor.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Literature, 19th Century, American, United States

512 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. At the time of his death, Melville was no longer well known to the public, but the 1919 centennial of his birth was the starting point of a Melville revival. Moby-Dick eventually would be considered one of the great American novels.
Melville was born in New York City, the third child of a prosperous merchant whose death in 1832 left the family in dire financial straits. He took to sea in 1839 as a common sailor on a merchant ship and then on the whaler Acushnet, but he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands. Typee, his first book, and its sequel, Omoo (1847), were travel-adventures based on his encounters with the peoples of the islands. Their success gave him the financial security to marry Elizabeth Shaw, the daughter of the Boston jurist Lemuel Shaw. Mardi (1849), a romance-adventure and his first book not based on his own experience, was not well received. Redburn (1849) and White-Jacket (1850), both tales based on his experience as a well-born young man at sea, were given respectable reviews, but did not sell well enough to support his expanding family.
Melville's growing literary ambition showed in Moby-Dick (1851), which took nearly a year and a half to write, but it did not find an audience, and critics scorned his psychological novel Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852). From 1853 to 1856, Melville published short fiction in magazines, including "Benito Cereno" and "Bartleby, the Scrivener". In 1857, he traveled to England, toured the Near East, and published his last work of prose, The Confidence-Man (1857). He moved to New York in 1863, eventually taking a position as a United States customs inspector.
From that point, Melville focused his creative powers on poetry. Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) was his poetic reflection on the moral questions of the American Civil War. In 1867, his eldest child Malcolm died at home from a self-inflicted gunshot. Melville's metaphysical epic Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land was published in 1876. In 1886, his other son Stanwix died of apparent tuberculosis, and Melville retired. During his last years, he privately published two volumes of poetry, and left one volume unpublished. The novella Billy Budd was left unfinished at his death, but was published posthumously in 1924. Melville died from cardiovascular disease in 1891.

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jan 15 ~~ I got this book for Billy Budd. I have read all the other selections (except for two sketches) in another book which I reviewed a couple of years ago. Proper review will be coming asap.

Jan 18 ~~ Since reading Melville In Love I have been enjoying my own personal Melville revival. I've read Moby Dick again and I surprised myself by wanting to tackle Billy Budd for the first time since high school.

I knew the book I ordered had other short works by Melville in it, but I thought they would be selections that I had not previously read. Turned out that One first story was actually a chapter lifted entire from Moby Dick, and the others I had read in a book I reviewed on GR a couple of years ago. Of the many entries here, only three were new to me; so my review for this book is really just for John Marr, Daniel Ormes, and Billy Budd.

According to the editor of this volume:
The special pathos of this sketch, written as prologue to one of several poems commemorating the long-vanished glory days of certain old forecastle sailors has to do not only with John Marr's longing for a phantomlike past but also his inability to find anyone who can listen to his reminiscence understandingly.
Poor John Marr. After he could no longer sail the seven seas, he retires and ends up far inland, on the prairie, surrounded by people who would never understand the stories he could tell. And as he becomes more isolated emotionally, he begins to talk with the ghosts of his former crew mates. I have put a volume of Melville's poetry on my Read This Soon list; I found it at Gutenberg. HM's poem about John Marr is listed in the contents, so I will be reading it Someday. I wonder if Melville wrote such a detailed sketch of his man in order to make him seem even more real for the poetry?

The editor says that Daniel Orme, the other sketch here, was also written as a prologue to a poem. I haven't checked in that Melville poetry volme to see if there is a poem about this man there, but I did see that in Billy Budd there was a character very much like Daniel. No name, but similar duties on the ship and similar appearance. The editor says this piece was written at the same time as Billy Budd, and I can imagine HM creating this old sailor for that tale, and then maybe getting interested in him and taking a little time to amuse himself by writing a short piece about him. Or he could have created the piece first in order to have a more rounded character in his mind for the role he was destined to play in Billy's life? Either way, the short piece is quite intense; it made me feel very much a part of Daniel's sad life.

Now to Billy Budd. I don't know if this book is still thrust upon teenagers in high school English courses, but it should not be. I think a person has to live life for more than just 15 or 16 years before being able to appreciate all that is going on in this book. All I remember from my own forced reading of this novella was being confused and thinking that Billy was much younger than he really was.

Here, 45 years later, I saw just how Melville tied together many topics such as the Great Mutiny in the British Navy (that happened just a few months before the events in Billy Budd). The sailors were still not completely content with their lot in life, and there were many many sailors who were impressed into service, literally taken off of other ships and forced to serve in the Royal Navy. This is what happened to Billy.

He was the 'Handsome Sailor' of a merchant ship: the best-looking, hardest working, most able sailor of the crew. Everyone liked him, and he seemed to be able to keep the peace among the various personalities that surrounded him. Then the Navy ship came along and snatched him for their own. What did he think about that? Well, HM portrays Billy as a totally innocent character, almost simple minded in the way of the world. He is a natural human being, without any awareness of understanding of all the plots and games that most men get up to in life. So he simply accepts his new life, tries to learn all the rules about life on a Royal Navy ship, and continues doing his work with a sense of joy as usual.

Contrasting with Billy is the master-at-arms Claggart, whose job like a policeman, keeping order on the ship. But he takes an instant dislike to Billy. Why? Claggart himself was a handsome man but Billy was better looking. Everyone liked Billy, but Claggart's very position left him separated from the types of true friendships that Billy could encounter. So was he jealous? Did he have feelings for Billy that he preferred not to acknowledge? Did he just think that Billy was the ideal target for his own cruelty, which leads to a traumatic end for both of them?

This book made me cry. I became so caught up in Billy's situation, it seemed as if I were right there on the ship with him. And I wanted so much for him to get out of the trouble created for him by his own inexperience. There is so much symbolism here and could be even more than I think there is, that I will never understand how a high school student could be expected to 'get' this book. I am not sure I entirely get it myself, at least not in a way I can put into words. All I know is that it is an impressive and magical piece of work, an amazing way to end a writing career, and that I will be coming back to read it again.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this ages ago, guess I forgot that I had it on here. I adore Melville.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m counting this as read (even though I didn’t read every story) because of the intense amount of mental effort that went into reading what I DID read for my class. And that’s that on that.

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first week of reading this for class I was very sympathetic to Melville's skepticism. I'm over it now. Melville needs to make a damn point, and he just never does! He raises too many issues in his stories (*cough cough* "Billy Budd") and never actually reaches any conclusions. "Apple Tree Table" was the only story where he actually concluded something, and it was about weird spiritualism and a ticking table. Think I need to read about Anne Shirley now so that I can revive from the soul rot that Melville produced. I'm so over it.

[Jim Robles · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Benito Cereno" is one of my favorites. I recommend it and "Bartleby the Scrivener." I did not read all of the stories: enough Melville!

Introduction

p. 14. Melville's humor is inseparable from the imaginative intelligence supporting his gravest undertakings in fiction. The impressions of life and destiny it delivers are not materially different from what emerges in the works of his, like "Benito Cereno" and "Billy Budd," where comic extravagance is subordinated almost completely to wit of another kind, the wit of moral and psychological understanding and of joined narrative sequence which tragic action even more exactingly requires of the writer who attempts it.

p. 16. . . . in nature, as in law, it may be libelous to speak some truths."

The Town-Ho's Story

p. 37. "Where Steelkilt now is, gentlemen, none know; but upon the island of Nantucket, the widow of Radney still turns to the sea which refuses to give up its dead: still in dreams sees the awful White Whale that destroyed him.

Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street

Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!

p. 77. Don't the heavens themselves ordain these things - else they could not happen?

The Encantadas or Enchanted Isles

We spent fourteen nights on a boat in the Galapagos in the spring of 2006. It was the trip of a lifetime, and this really brought it back.

Benito Cereno

The March 2014 selection for The (mostly) New Yorker Book Club.

p. 266. . . . since, as intense heat and cold, though unlike, produce like sensations, so innocence and guilt, when, through casual association with mental pain, stamping any visible impress, use one seal - a hacked one.

[alien queen · Rating 3 out of 5]

"A miserable world! Who would take the trouble to make a fortune in it, when he knows not how long he can keep it, for the thousand villains and asses who have the management of railroads and steamboats, and innumerable other vital things in the world. If they would make me Dictator in North America awhile I'd string them up ! and hang, draw, and quarter; fry, roast and boil; stew, grill, and devil them like so many turkey-legs—the rascally numskulls of stokers ; I'd set them to stokering in Tartarus—I would!" Herman kinda cooked with this one

[David Massey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read all of this before. Some things ("I and My Chimney," "The Two Temples," "Benito Cereno") are better than I remember them, one or two ("The Town-Ho's Story," "Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man's Crumbs") not as good; but the book only proves once again that Melville was a masterful storyteller, and Billy Budd, Sailor is an American classic. Melville retained his genius right to the end of his life.

[ohbaudelaire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I forgot to write a review of this book.
To begin with, the structure of Melville’s writing is directly associated with the diverse characteristics of one’s nature depicting the idea of such topics as obsession, morality, and existential problem. Besides, language and symbolism of his writings give reader an in-depth literary appreciation skills which pique the reader’s critical thinking ability.
I really liked the edition and Warner Berthoff introduction was amazing.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit that Melville can at times be a tough read.
Mainly known for his seafaring stories, which can at times be difficult to get through, I will say that there is much more to him and worth the read.
Bartleby is always a favorite, as is Billy Budd.
But I was really taken in by Benito Cereno.
Knowing it was based on a true story gives it added interest. This is the one that is haunting me.

[Karen S. · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I enjoyed some of these (Billy Budd, Sailor; Benito Cereno; Bartleby, the Scrivener; Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man's Crumbs; The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids; The Apple-Tree Table) - to various extents -, I skimmed most of them because I couldn't get into the story.

[Dean]

The editor, Berthoff, does Melville a disservice by comparisons to Dickens. Melville does not use caricature but more realistic description of his characters. Once I realized this the stories became better at describing the human condition. Most are worth reading.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Cock-A-Doodle-Doo! or, The Crowing of the Noble Cock Beneventano", "The happy failure: a story of the River Hudson" and "The Violinist" are my top pics of these Herman Melville short stories. I will maybe read Moby Dick one day...

[Rebekah Byson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore Melville! Every one of his short works or sketches hit me in just the right mood. If you read nothing else in this life, read Melville.

[Natasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I kind of fell in love with Melville through his short stories. He gives voice to the oppressed through presenting their painful silence.

[Kirra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know if this is what Melville wanted, but Bartleby is my hero. Tartarus of Maids is dope too. Lightning-Rod Man is hilarious. Good job, Hermie.

[Jo New]

Good book

[lyndaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super

[Quinn Carroll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed significantly. Special place in my heart for Piazza and Mt. Greylock!

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the spring of 1853 after the failure of his novel Pierre: Or the Ambiguities and the rejection of his most recent manuscript, The Isle of the Cross (now lost), Herman Melville submitted three stories to Harper's. This was the beginning of period that would see the publication of such great stories as "Bartley, the Scrivener", "Benito Cereno", "The Piazza", and others. It would culminate with his great unfinished novella, Billy Budd, Sailor. All of Melville's tales including Billy Budd are included in this collection from Harper's Perennial Library.
By the end of 1853 Melville submits his first story that can be considered not only great but even amazing; this is Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street. The story amazes in many ways and on many levels. One theme is a world of walls as the narrator, an "unambitious" lawyer who prefers the peace of his office to the bustle of the courtroom with judge and jury. He describes himself as "an eminently safe man", certainly someone who his clients can trust. The world of his office, located on Wall Street, is one of walls within, separating the scriveners from the lawyer, and walls without since the view from the few windows is limited by the proximity of the walls of the building next door.
Into his apparently prosperous business enters Bartleby, a scrivener or clerk, who is hired to handle some additional copying work. Bartleby, as we soon learn, would "prefer not" to do any task other than copying and before too long he seems to slowly stop doing any work. He is a "forlorn" and sickly character from the beginning (reminiscent of the copyist "Nemo", a minor character in Dickens' Bleak House). And his presence gradually requires the narrator to attempt, unsuccessfully, to provoke him so that he might respond in kind. Their worlds clash and in another deeper sense a spiritual realm is entered. The result is a crisis of faith for the lawyer, he thought to himself: "I might give alms to his body; but his body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach." (p 56)
One may interpret Bartleby as a "Christ-like" messenger, but what is his message? The variety of themes in the story takes on an objective pathos and parabolic overtones that are almost Dostoievskian in complexity. The story ends with a sort of epilogue that succeeds only in muddying the message further. What makes the story so magnificent is all of the many different possibilities present in it. Just as the narrator has his faith shaken and his perceptions changed by Bartleby, the reader finds his imagination roiled by the possibilities -- the ending merely lays out a choice for the reader. You decide what it all means.

[Felice · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read these stories when I was in my early 20's. And as Mark Twain said Melville is not only smarter now than he was then, he is also a better writer than he was back then. Seriously, these stories contain the undeniable masterworks like Benito Cereno, Bartleby and Bill Budd, which academics have all but exploited to dead, yet are still fresh and readable.But also all the rest of the stories that Melville wrote for the many magazines of his day --most notably Putnam's magazine, put out by Melville's publisher to highlight their writers. There is a richness of mood, setting, character, ambiance, historical time and place to these stories that belie Melville being a "sea story writer." There is a wide variety of mood, feeling, and insight too. Some of the tales are very light, mere anecdotes--or, and this really surprised me, they are "True Stories"--much like my own, but set in his time and place: 1840's to 1850's mostly downtown New York City or that wicked big city, London of his day. Pieces like "The Two Temples" Jimmy Rose" The Happy Failure" The Paradise of Bachelors" are little more than perfect reportage. Even more surprising is Melville being our own social commentator a la Dickens, with his views of how the Industrial revolution had altered life, as in "The Tartarus of Maids" and how commercialization has taken over all "The Lightning Rod Man." Then there are his portraits of American poverty that equal the best of Steinbeck and James Agee, and possibly were their inspiration, Add in funny domestic stories like "I and My Chimney" and "The Apple Tree Table" and the result is an American writer of amazing bravura who can stand next to the greatest authors of any other nation or time in his sweep and variety. Bravo Melville!

[Charles Matthews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listening to Benjamin Britten's opera Billy Budd not long ago, I realized how long it has been since I read Melville's story, so that's what inspired me to bring out this volume.

There are really only four "great" stories in the book:

* "Bartleby, the Scrivener," that astonishing imaginative bridge between Charles Dickens and Franz Kafka.
* "The Encantadas," an imaginative travelogue to the Galápagos, seen not as Darwin's laboratory of natural selection nor as the ecotourist's endangered paradise, but as the Fallen World in its raw essence.
* "Benito Cereno," the most mechanically structured of Melville's tales but also the one that raises the most unsettling questions about its theme and tone.
* "Billy Budd," that inexhaustible fable about innocence and experience, intellect and nature, beauty and ugliness, good and evil, as well as one of the nineteenth century's most provocative, if veiled, explorations of same-sex attraction.

As for the rest of the stories, none of them stand out. But you should read them anyway to understand the way Melville's moral imagination works. Sadly, Warner Berthoff's introduction is a bit of a slog through the academic fog, but there are nuggets to be gleaned from it.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Herman Melville is an incredible author. His writing is dense, so much so that the traditional Picture-Words exchange rate cannot apply to his novels. His prose positions itself so as to increase the resolution of all images it evokes; his thousand words portray but a corner of an intricate, focused picture. Within each short story he, like an artist well versed in the trade, paints such a believable slice of the 19th century that his readers must engage.

Of all these short works, my favorite by far is I and My Chimney, a tongue-in-cheek account of an autobiographical man's battle with his wife over an enormous chimney. Of course, this is followed closely by The Encantadas and many, many others.

[Cwl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories looming largest on the cover will matter the most to most of you. Melville's other miscellanea draw a hard line between his short-form mastery and Hawthorne's. Practically any Hawthorne story is worth reading, but I can't say the same for entries like "The Two Temples". "The Encantadas" is a little too reminiscent of his earlier novels for me to enjoy, more like a travelogue (one with disquieting tortoise-flipping action) than great literature. "Benito Cereno" seems a little bloated, mocking the "Short Works" section of the title, and isn't as enjoyable as Melville's best. "Billy Budd" and "Bartleby, the Scrivener" are the jewels of this collection in my eyes.

[Esther · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Bartleby, the Scrivener" and "Benito Cereno" are nice tales, but my very most favorite Melville piece is far and away "I and My Chimney." After reading it I managed to find a few pictures posted on line of the home where Melville was living and of which he was writing in "I and My Chimney." I have started Moby Dick several times and I know I should love it, but to be honest I don't think I have ever managed--even in preparation for a test while in college--to reach the final page. Give me "I and My Chimney," the essays, the short stories. Let the rest of the world and serious readers have that nasty great whale.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

This can be broken into 4 smaller books

1. Great Short Works of Herman Melville: Bartleby and Billy Budd, both marvelous and full of the inscrutability of what it is to be human and among the greatest stories in the language.

2. Pretty Good Short Works of Herman Melville: The Town-Ho's Story, Cock-A-Doodle-Doo, and The Encantadas.

3. OK Short Works of Herman Melville: Piles of decent, but slight work.

which leaves,

4. Terrible Short Works of Herman Melville: I and My Chimney, The 'Gees, and The Bell-Tower, the last being astonishingly awful, like someone parodying Melville imitating a bad Lovecraft imitator.

[Jose Vera · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lo único que se me ocurre decir es mediocre. Un libro que no voy a recordar ni voy a extrañar. Quizas lo mencionare como aquellos libros que se deben evitar leer.

De frases ampulosas en exceso, extraordinariamente rebuscadas, con monólogos azucarados hasta la diabetes, creo que esta colección de cuentos es apenas interesante.

La temática de las historias pudo haber sido explotada de mejor manera (la historia del gallo o la del viejo y huraño marinero) tienen un gran potencial; pero el estilo de Melville convirtio una idea interesante en una mala historia.

No he leido, aun, Moby Dick; pero si el estilo se mantiene, va a ser mejor que evite dicho libro.

[Vincent Gammill · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the most part, these works are not like Moby Dick -- less enormous, less ambitious, and less overwhelming. But this focused, more cozy aspect suits many of these stories exceedingly well and gives Melville's prose many new avenues to flourish. Several of the stories were rather unapologetically didactic (not that anyone could fail to notice from the title "Poor Man's Pudding, Rich Man's Crumbs"), and an isolated few were clumsy, but there are greats here, and some of them are incredibly funny, too.

[Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some stories in this collection were seriously entertaining, and several provided a great look at life in the times of Melville, in the places he lived and visited (the Galapogos, England and the colonies).
On the other hand, many stories open with criticism of the story, and claims of disbelief that it had managed to be printed in its day. These stories manage to be a slower read than Moby Dick itself, and have no place in a collection named the greatest of Melville.

[Paul Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A former co-worker of mine thought Billy Budd was the greatest short story ever written, though for my money, Billy Budd might as well be Ulysses. I've been reading it since August and still have not gotten all the way through yet.

O Kinch, the knifeblade...

[Zeke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I dunno. The jacket described it as "perfection." I used to live on S Melville St, so I read Moby Dick. Melville does have a way with words and an eye for detail, but it's just sensationalist when it comes down to it.