Melville's Short Novels

Melville's Short Novels

Author: Herman Melville

Publisher: W. W. Norton

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13:

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This Norton Critical Edition presents three of Melville's most important short novels -- Bartleby, The Scrivener; Benito Cereno; and Billy Budd. The texts are accompanied by ample explanatory annotation. As his writing reflects, Melville was extraordinarily well read. "Contexts" offers selections from works that influenced Melville's writing of these three short novles, including, among others, Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The Transcendentalist" and Amasa Delano's Narrative of Voyages and Travels. Johannes Dietrich Bergmann, H. Bruce Franklin, and Robert M. Cover provide overviews of Melville's probable sources. An unusually rich "Criticism" section includes twenty-eight wide-ranging pieces that often contradict one another and that are sure to promote classroom discussion. Book jacket.


Benito Cereno & Bartleby

Benito Cereno & Bartleby

Author: Herman Melville

Publisher: e-artnow

Published: 2021-05-07

Total Pages: 107

ISBN-13:

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"Bartleby, the Scrivener" – An elderly Manhattan lawyer with a comfortable business in legal documents has two scriveners employed, but an increase in business leads him to advertise for a third. He hires the forlorn-looking Bartleby in the hope that his calmness will soothe the irascible temperaments of the other two. An office boy nicknamed Ginger Nut completes the staff. At first, Bartleby produces a large volume of high-quality work, but one day, when asked to help proofread a document, Bartleby answers with what soon becomes his perpetual response to every request: "I would prefer not to." "Benito Cereno" is a tale about the revolt on a Spanish slave ship captained by Don Benito Cereno. In 1799 off the coast of Chile, Captain Amasa Delano of the American sealer and merchant ship Bachelor's Delight visits the San Dominick, a Spanish slave ship apparently in distress. After learning from its captain Benito Cereno that a storm has taken many crewmembers and provisions, Delano offers to help out. He notices that Cereno acts awkwardly passive for a captain and the slaves display remarkably inappropriate behavior, and though this piques his suspicion he ultimately decides he is being paranoid. When he leaves the San Dominick and captain Cereno jumps after him, he finally discovers that the slaves have taken command of the ship, and forced the surviving crew to act as usual.


Billy Budd & Other Stories

Billy Budd & Other Stories

Author: Herman Melville

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9781853267499

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Stung by the critical reception and lack of commercial success of his previous two works, Moby-Dick and Pierre, Herman Melville became obsessed with the difficulties of communicating his vision to readers. His sense of isolation lies at the heart of these later works. "Billy Budd, Sailor," a classic confrontation between good and evil, is the story of an innocent young man unable to defend himself against a wrongful accusation. The other selections here-"Bartleby," "The Encantadas," "Benito Cereno," and "The Piazza"-also illuminate, in varying guises, the way fictions are created and shared with a wider society. In his introduction Frederick Busch discusses Melville's preoccupation with his "correspondence with the world," his quarrel with silence, and why fiction was, for Melville, "a matter of life and death." Book jacket.


Billy Budd, Sailor and Selected Tales

Billy Budd, Sailor and Selected Tales

Author: Herman Melville

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 9780192839039

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Outwardly a narrative of events aboard a British man-of-war during the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars, this novel is a nautical recasting of the Fall, a parable of good and evil, a meditation on justice and political governance, and a portrait of three extraordinary men.


Billy Budd, Bartleby, and Other Stories

Billy Budd, Bartleby, and Other Stories

Author: Herman Melville

Publisher: Penguin Classics

Published: 2016-04-26

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 0143107607

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A new, definitive edition of Herman Melville’s virtuosic short stories—American classics wrought with scorching fury, grim humor, and profound beauty Though best-known for his epic masterpiece Moby-Dick, Herman Melville also left a body of short stories arguably unmatched in American fiction. In the sorrowful tragedy of Billy Budd, Sailor; the controlled rage of Benito Cereno; and the tantalizing enigma of Bartleby, the Scrivener; Melville reveals himself as a singular storyteller of tremendous range and compelling power. In these stories, Melville cuts to the heart of race, class, capitalism, and globalism in America, deftly navigating political and social issues that resonate as clearly in our time as they did in Melville’s. Also including The Piazza Tales in full, this collection demonstrates why Melville stands not only among the greatest writers of the nineteenth century, but also as one of our greatest contemporaries. This Penguin Classics edition features the Reading Text of Billy Budd, Sailor, as edited from a genetic study of the manuscript by Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Sealts, Jr., and the authoritative Northwestern-Newberry text of The Piazza Tales. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.


Bartleby, the Scrivener

Bartleby, the Scrivener

Author: Herman Melville

Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 90

ISBN-13: 1425007996

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At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two persons as copyists in my employment, and a promising lad as an office-boy. First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut. These may seem names, the like of which are not usually found in the Directory. In truth they were nicknames, mutually conferred upon each other by my three clerks, and were deemed expressive of their respective persons or characters.