Tales, Poems, and Other Writings

by Herman Melville

From short masterpieces like “Bartleby the Scrivener” and “Billy Budd” to more obscure, even completely unknown works like the epic poem “Clarel,” Melville’s stories and poems rank among his greatest and most gripping work. This unique anthology–the first of its kind in fifty years–gathers together all of Melville’s tales, as well as a judiciously edited array of his prose poems, literary criticism, letters, lectures, and poetry. Though few realize it today, poetry was Melville’s abiding passion; yet his poetry has never received the recognition it deserves, until now.

Containing many writings available nowhere else, and edited by leading Melville scholar John Bryant, Tales, Poems, and Other Writings includes a comprehensive introductory essay and extensive, in many cases groundbreaking, editorial commentary. It opens a window onto Melville’s writing process–he was a ceaseless reviser and experimenter–and reveals his career-long evolution as a writer as well as the full breadth of his literary achievement. And it marks a new stage in our ability to appreciate not only the work of one of our greatest writers, but the immense dedication that lay behind it.

John Bryant is a professor of English at Hofstra University. He has published five books and numerous articles on Melville, and is the editor of the Penguin Classics edition of Typee and the Modern Library edition of The Confidence-Man. He has been the general editor of the Melville Society, one of the oldest and largest single-author societies in America, since 1990.


From the Hardcover edition.

Starting out. Fragments from a writing desk, No. 2 ; Versions of Typee: Typee, chapter 14 --
The art of telling the truth. Letters ; Hawthorne and his mosses --
Tales and sketches. Bartleby, the scrivener ; Cock-a-doodle-doo! ; From The encantadas: The Chola widow ; The two temples ; The paradise of bachelors and the Tartarus of maids ; The bell-tower ; Benito Cereno ; The 'gees ; I and my chimney ; The piazza --
Statues in Rome and poems by Herman Melville. Statues in Rome ; Poems by Herman Melville --
From Battle-pieces. Supplement --
From Clarel: a poem and pilgrimage in the Holy Land --
Prose & poem: John Marr, and others. From John Marr and other sailors with some sea-pieces ; From The Burgundy club ; Rammon and "The enviable isles" ; Under the rose --
Billy Budd. Billy Budd, sailor: an inside narrative ; Versions of Billy: the ur-Billy Budd ; Versions of "art" --
From Weeds and wildings, chiefly: with a rose or two. Rip van Winkle's lilac ; Nine Rose poems.

Genres: Poetry, Short Stories, Fiction, American, Literature, Classic Literature

688 pages, Paperback

Published July 9, 2002

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

[Jesse]

Quite frankly I would rather have dental work performed than read most of the material brought together in this collection: of interest to me was its inclusion of what editor John Bryant calls "The Ur-Billy Budd," that is, the several brief fragments of poetry and prose that eventually generated into the Billy Budd as we know it today (see my full review Melville's novella here).

In light of my queer-inflected interest in this story, I particularly love the penultimate lines:

"In my last queer dream here I bid adieu—
For most part a dream of ships no more—
A muster of men from every shore—
Hail to ye, fellows, and is it you?"

[Artur · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm putting my copy of this book in the bin to make sure no one ever has to read it.

[P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read some of the tales and letters in this collection, including Bartleby the Scrivener, which I'd never read before. I do, however, own the movie adaptation starring Crispin Glover. Which meant that I pictured him in the role of Bartleby. It didn't diminish the story.

I like reading Melville because his prose forces me to relax and just go wherever it is going, like taking a mental carriage ride. It's slow (the reading requires more attention than usual) but interesting. And often funny.

[RebSam7 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed some of Melville's writing in this compilation. His alterations and edits of various editions of published works are included, which makes the writing process more alive. His letters to Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife are supremely laughable. Melville was absolutely star-struck by this contemporary.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can see why many people find Melville boring, but I can't agree. I bought this for Bartleby and Billy Budd but there was all kinds of other good stuff in here. His poetry is betteer than I gave it credit for and his letters in hre were really good, too. Billy Budd is a true classic.

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a while, you really need a whale tale. Plus, Bartleby was calling to me. My hero!