"He has a very high and noble nature, and [is] better worth immortality than most of us"óso Hawthorne wrote of Herman Melville in his journal for 1856. This collection of essays undertakes to re-examine the "nobility" of Melville's powerful and engaging imagination. Not only are his primary motifs of "the journey" and the quest for Truth given attention, but also his subtleties as a great maker of fiction are analysed. Hence the collection as a whole stresses Melville's way with language and irony and his serious, inventive playfulness as a writer.