Herman Melville - The Complete Works of Herman Melville - Novels, Short Stories, Poems & Essays

Herman Melville

With Adventure Classics, Sea Tales & Philosophical Works

Published by

Books

- Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -

musaicumbooks@okpublishing.info

2017 OK Publishing

ISBN 978-80-272-2445-6

Novels NOVELS Table of Contents

Typee

Omoo

Mardi

Redburn

White-Jacket

Moby-Dick

Pierre

Israel Potter

The Confidence-Man

Billy Budd, Sailor

Short Stories

The Piazza Tales

The Piazza

Bartleby, the Scrivener

Benito Cereno

The Lightning-Rod Man

The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles

The Bell-Tower

The Apple-Tree Table and Other Sketches

The Apple-Tree Table

Jimmy Rose

I and My Chimney

The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids

Cock-a-Doodle-Doo!

The Fiddler

Poor Man’s Pudding and Rich Man’s Crumbs

The Happy Failure

The ‘Gees

Other Stories

The Two Temples

Daniel Orme

Poetry

Clarel – A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land

Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War

John Marr and Other Sailors

Timoleon and Other Ventures in Minor Verse

Weeds and Wildings, With a Rose or Two

Poems from Mardi

Other Poems

Essays

Fragments from a Writing Desk

Etchings of a Whaling Cruise

Authentic Anecdotes of “Old Zack”

Mr. Parkman’s Tour

Cooper’s New Novel

A Thought on Book-Binding

Hawthorne and His Mosses

Criticism

Herman Melville by Virginia Woolf

Herman Melville's Moby Dick by D.H. Lawrence

Herman Melville's Typee and Omoo by D.H. Lawrence

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

The Story of Toby

Note

TO LEMUEL SHAW, CHIEF JUSTICE OF TILE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, THIS LITTLE WORK IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR.

Table of Contents

More than three years have elapsed since the occurrence of the events recorded in this volume. The interval, with the exception of the last few months, has been chiefly spent by the author tossing about on the wide ocean. Sailors are the only class of men who now-a-days see anything like stirring adventure; and many things which to fire-side people appear strange and romantic, to them seem as common-place as a jacket out at elbows. Yet, notwithstanding the familiarity of sailors with all sorts of curious adventure, the incidents recorded in the following pages have often served, when ‘spun as a yarn,’ not only to relieve the weariness of many a night-watch at sea, but to excite the warmest sympathies of the author’s shipmates. He has been, therefore, led to think that his story could scarcely fail to interest those who are less familiar than the sailor with a life of adventure.

In his account of the singular and interesting people among whom he was thrown, it will be observed that he chiefly treats of their more obvious peculiarities; and, in describing their customs, refrains in most cases from entering into explanations concerning their origin and purposes. As writers of travels among barbarous communities are generally very diffuse on these subjects, he deems it right to advert to what may be considered a culpable omission. No one can be more sensible than the author of his deficiencies in this and many other respects; but when the very peculiar circumstances in which he was placed are understood, he feels assured that all these omissions will be excused.

In very many published narratives no little degree of attention is bestowed upon dates; but as the author lost all knowledge of the days of the week, during the occurrence of the scenes herein related, he hopes that the reader will charitably pass over his shortcomings in this particular.

In the Polynesian words used in this volume,—except in those cases where the spelling has been previously determined by others,—that form of orthography has been employed, which might be supposed most easily to convey their sound to a stranger. In several works descriptive of the islands in the Pacific, many of the most beautiful combinations of vocal sounds have been altogether lost to the ear of the reader by an over-attention to the ordinary rules of spelling.

There are a few passages in the ensuing chapters which may be thought to bear rather hard upon a reverend order of men, the account of whose proceedings in different quarters of the globe—transmitted to us through their own hands—very generally, and often very deservedly, receives high commendation. Such passages will be found, however, to be based upon facts admitting of no contradiction, and which have come immediately under the writer’s cognizance. The conclusions deduced from these facts are unavoidable, and in stating them the author has been influenced by no feeling of animosity, either to the individuals themselves, or to that glorious cause which has not always been served by the proceedings of some of its advocates.

The great interest with which the important events lately occurring at the Sandwich, Marquesas, and Society Islands, have been regarded in America and England, and indeed throughout the world, will, he trusts, justify a few otherwise unwarrantable digressions.

There are some things related in the narrative which will be sure to appear strange, or perhaps entirely incomprehensible, to the reader; but they cannot appear more so to him than they did to the author at the time. He has stated such matters just as they occurred, and leaves every one to form his own opinion concerning them; trusting that his anxious desire to speak the unvarnished truth will gain for him the confidence of his readers.

1846.

Table of Contents

THE SEA—LONGINGS FOR SHORE—A LAND-SICK SHIP—DESTINATION OF THE VOYAGERS—THE MARQUESAS—ADVENTURE OF A MISSIONARY’S WIFE AMONG THE SAVAGES—CHARACTERISTIC ANECDOTE OF THE QUEEN OF NUKUHEVA

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 provisions were all exhausted. There is not a sweet potato left; not a single yam. Those glorious bunches of bananas, which once decorated our stern and quarter-deck, have, alas, disappeared! and the delicious oranges which hung suspended from our tops and stays—they, too, are gone! Yes, they are all departed, and there is nothing left us but salt-horse and sea-biscuit. Oh! ye state-room sailors, who make so much ado about a fourteen-days’ passage across the Atlantic; who so pathetically relate the privations and hardships of the sea, where, after a day of breakfasting, lunching, dining off five courses, chatting, playing whist, and drinking champagne-punch, it was your hard lot to be shut up in little cabinets of mahogany and maple, and sleep for ten hours, with nothing to disturb you but ‘those good-for-nothing tars, shouting and tramping overhead’,—what would ye say to our six months out of sight of land?