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The life and legacy of Herman Melville have taken on various incarnations in the nearly 200 years since he was born. When he died in 1891, Melville was remembered for his series of well-received works back in the mid-19th century, particularly his first novel Typee, a bestseller... Read Full Overview

Six months at sea Yes, reader, as I live, six months out of sight of land; cruising after the sperm-whale beneath the scorching sun of the Line, and tossed on the billows of the wide-rolling Pacific-the sky above, the sea around, and nothing else Weeks and weeks ago our fresh... Read Full Overview

"Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life" was Herman Melville's first novel and the work he was best known for during his own lifetime. Originally published in 1846, "Typee" was an immediate success and made Melville suddenly into a popular American author. The novel was partially... Read Full Overview

Based on Melville's actual experiences after having jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands, this work was extremely popular, and provoked disbelief among its readers until the events it described were corroborated by Melville's fellow castaway, Richard Greene. While the book is... Read Full Overview

Typee is the first "romance" of the South Seas, a semi-autobiographical account of life in the Marquesas Islands in the 1840s. A blend of personal experience and the narratives of explorers and missionaries, it influenced many later writers on the Pacific, including Robert Louis... Read Full Overview

This novel, the last one that Melville wrote, is set on a Mississippi steamer on April Fool's Day. A Young man, the devil in disguise, enters the steamer and during its voyage down the mighty river he starts confronting the passengers with their deepest fears and prejudices.

Typee is "in fact, neither literal autobiography nor pure fiction". Melville "drew his material from his experiences, from his imagination, and from a variety of travel books when the memory of his experiences were inadequate." He departed from what actually happened in several... Read Full Overview

I may truly pronounce the Typees to be as polished a community as ever the sun shone upon.

Herman Melville's first novel, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, is a fictionalized account of his time in the South Pacific Marquesas Islands, and it was his most popular work... Read Full Overview