Herman Melville Biography and latest books by Herman Melville

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


Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) became popular when his novel Moby-Dick and novella Billy Budd released. He was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. His first three books garnered quite a bit of attention (Typee, his first was a bestseller), but his popularity declined considerably and never recovered till he was alive. During his death in 1891, he was forgotten. It was much later in the 20th century that Moby-Dick was hailed as one of the literary masterpieces of both American and World literature.


His work Moby-Dick was dedicated to Melville\'s friend and author Nathaniel Hawthorne. It did not, help Melville with his finances. The book, in fact, did not even sell its first printing of 3,000 copies when Melville was alive and total earnings from the book amounted to just $556.37 from his publisher, Harper & Brothers. Melville also authored Billy Budd, White-Jacket, Israel Potter, Redburn, Typee, Omoo, Pierre, The Confidence-Man and many short stories, including Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street and Benito Cereno.


Melville was also a poet but he did not publish poetry until later in life. After the Civil War, he published Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War. Melville was not financially successful and earned just over $10,000 for his writing during his lifetime. After the success of travelogues based on voyages to the South Seas and stories based on misadventures in the merchant marine and navy, Melville\'s popularity declined dramatically. By 1876, all of his books were rolled out of print. In the later years of his life and during the years after his death he was recognized, only as a minor figure in American literature.
 

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