Essay Archive - Herman Melville: His Life and Works
Herman Melville: His Life and Works
Melville, Herman (1819-91), American novelist, a major literary figure
whose exploration of psychological and metaphysical themes foreshadowed
20th-century literary concerns but whose works remained in obscurity until
the 1920s, when his genius was finally recognized.
Melville was born August 1, 1819, in New York City, into a family that had
declined in the world. “The Gansevoorts were solid, stable, eminent,
prosperous people; the (Herman's Father's side) Melvilles were somewhat
less successful materially, possessing an unpredictable. erratic, mercurial
strain.....
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