JOHN S. HART: MELVILLE.
FROM A MANUAL OF
AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1872
Melville is the author of several exciting works based upon his
adventures. The following are the principal: Typee, or Four
Months in the Marquesas; Omoo; Mardi, and
Voyage Thither; Redburn, or the Confessions of a
Gentleman's Son in the Merchant Service; White Jacket,
or the World in a Man-of-War; the Piazzi Tales, a
series of stories published in Putnam's Magazine;
The Confidence Man. His two best works are, perhaps,
Typee and Redburn. In the former, life among
the savages is described in an almost idyllic style, too idyllic,
it has been observed, to be wholly accurate. At least one may be
permitted to doubt whether the savages of Typee were quite as
interesting as Melville has represented them. The work itself and
its successors attracted great attention at the time of their
appearance, and although interest in them has since abated, they
are still excellent in point of style. Melville is a writer of
forcible and graceful English, although in some of his works he
lapses into mysticism.
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