If Moby-Dick can be claimed as the Great American Novel, then Melville's short works are the Great American Stories. 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 storyteller of tremendous range and compelling power. Melville was a poet of ambiguities, crafting intricate tales that change in meaning as the light and lens shift, inviting myriad readings rather than inscribing singular truths.
In these stories, Melville cuts to the heart of race, class, capitalism, and globalism in America. He held a mirror up to his America, and though the world has changed, the reflection he offered remains true. For an understanding of what it means to be an American throughout history, there is still no better guide than Melville.
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 1,500titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust theseries to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-datetranslations by award-winning translators.
Author Biography:
Herman Melville (1819-1863) is one of America's greatest writers. During his lifetime, Melville published nine novels, a collection of tales, and four volumes of poetry, along with various uncollected tales, poems, and reviews.
Peter Coviello (introduction and notes) is a professor of American literature and queer studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His books include Intimacy in America- Dreams of Affiliation in Antebellum Literature and, most recently, Tomorrow's Parties- Sex and the Untimely in Nineteenth-Century America, which was a finalist for a 2013 Lambda Award in LGBT Studies.
