Melville's 'Billy Budd' at 100
Title
Melville's 'Billy Budd' at 100
Collection Items
Case of the Somersí MutinyóDefense Before the Court Martial held at the Navy Yard, Brooklyn.
Melville had a direct family connection to executions at sea aboard a warship. In 1842, a young midshipman and two of the crew were hanged for the crime of mutiny on an American naval brig. Melvilleís cousin, Guert Gansevoort, the shipís executive…
John Marr and Other Sailors with Some Sea Pieces.
Melville selected De Vinne Press, one of the most prominent printers in New York, for this anonymous work, now considered a great Melville rarity. Theodore Low De Vinne, the owner, was a founding member of The Grolier Club. We Grolierites seem to…
ALS to W. Clark Russell.
In 1888, Melville dedicated John Marr to W. Clark Russell, an American-born English writer best known for his nautical works. The two never met, but corresponded for many years, with high mutual regard. Melville's unusual dedication, in the form of…
Timoleon Etc.
The title poem of Melvilleís last published work plays upon Plutarchís Life of Timoleon in 238 lines of self-reflective meditation on life and aging. Other poems in this collection recall Melvilleís travels to Europe, the Middle East, and the…
Herman Melville Mariner and Mystic.
Weaverís biographyóthe first book-length treatment of Melvilleís lifeómarks the beginning of the twentieth centuryís ìMelville Revival.î His assessment was that Melvilleís longevity had done deep harm to his reputation and obscured the ìphenomenal…
Billy in the DarbiesóA Facsimile from the Manuscript of Herman Melvilleís Billy Budd, Sailor.
In 1991, the centenary of Melvilleís death, the Houghton Library published this facsimile, describing it as a ìstriking visual record of how Melville workedórevising, expanding, rethinking, and changing at the late stages and in fundamental ways a…
Excursions in Victorian Bibliography.
Interest in Melville grew slowly but steadily from the 1880s into the early decades of the twentieth century. Carl van Dorenís praise in the Cambridge History of American Literature in 1917, and Weaverís 1921 biography probably stimulated reprintings…
Some Personal Letters of Herman Melville and a Bibliography.
Meade Minnigerode, a London-born, Yale-educated, New York-based writer, introduced this bibliography appended to his edition of Melville letters with: ìMany lives, many bibliographies, of Melville will be written ... this being but a small effort…
Volume 13 of The Works of Herman Melville Standard Edition.
G. Thomas Tanselle maintains that, although Melville did not live to publish the novella, he meant to do so. Michael Sadleir, the bibliographer and force behind the 16-volume Constable editionóthe first standardized version of Melvilleís complete…
Shorter Novels of Herman Melville.
By 1928, Weaverís view of the merit of Billy Budd had evolved substantially and he praised the novella as Melvilleís ìlast word upon the strange mystery of himself and of human destiny.î It is, for him, ìbrief and appealing, unmatched among…
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