Abstract

Melville at Sea

This article presents information on the book "Herman Melville, a Biography," vol. 2, "1851-1891," by Hershel Parker. In 1851, when the 32-year-old writer Herman Melville published his masterpiece "Moby-Dick," he was already known as a man who'd consorted with cannibals. His first book, "Typee. A Peep at Polynesian Life," was an international sensation. A fictional travelogue based on his adventures, some of them sexual, in the Marquesas Islands, it offended genteel Christians and sold pretty well, so Melville dipped into his escapades again for "Omoo," more tales from the South Seas, and the career of Herman Melville, swashbuckling author, was launched. Melville is "the first American literary sex symbol," writes Hershel Parker in "Herman Melville, a Biography."