Showing results by author "Herman Melville" in All Categories

Do men need poems? Is the gender of brawn and ‘can-do’ really a candidate for honeyed verse? Obviously yes. Through the centuries men seem to dominate the writing of poetry. From books of epics to quatrains of love poetry it seemed to be a man’s world. His domain. A volume purely for men, to show other facets of their personalities and characters seems to be an obvious choice. One verse fits all is, in fact, far removed from the truth. Men needs words. They need support, understanding as well as goals, ambition and structure. They need purpose, desire; the need to love and be loved.

Benito Cereno is a novella by Herman Melville, a fictionalized account about the revolt on a Spanish slave ship captained by Don Benito Cereno, first published in three installments in Putnam's Monthly in 1855.

The sailor Ishmael gets himself hired on the "Pequod" for a whaling voyage, and tells the story of an astounding journey and of the obsessed Captain...

Herman Melville, known primarily for his epic Moby Dick, also wrote a number of equally incisive, but much shorter stories. This collection contains four of his best: "Bartelby the Scrivner", "Benito Cereno", "Jimmy Rose", and "The Fiddler".

Herman Melville’s novel The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857) is a comedy of masquerades and a blend of allegory, cultural satire, and metaphysics. The book portrays a confidence man who sneaks on board a Mississippi steamboat on April Fool's Day, and sets out to defraud his fellow passengers. He rapidly assumes various guises and the pleasure of trickery seems more important than the monetary gain. Each person is forced to confront that in which they believe.

Moby Dick, la novela que William Faulkner hubiera querido escribir, va siempre acompañada del reconocimiento y el elogio que merece toda construcción narrativa impecable. La lucha del capitán Ahab, su terrible obsesión y la mítica persecución de la enorme ballena ha traspasado fronteras, consiguiendo así la indiscutible categoría de obra maestra de la literatura universal.

Based on Melville's real-life experiences after having jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands, his first novel was extremely popular, provoking public skepticism until the events within were corroborated by a fellow castaway. Typee is properly considered a work of fiction, as the three weeks stay on which the author based his story is here extended to four months, and the book is supplemented with imaginative reconstruction and adaptation of material from other Pacific exploration books of the time. The title refers to the province of Tai Pi Vai.

"Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story by Herman Melville. The story first appeared, anonymously, in Putnam's Magazine in two parts. The first part appeared in November 1853, with the conclusion published in December 1853. It was reprinted in Melville's The Piazza Tales in 1856 with minor textual alterations. The work is said to have been inspired, in part, by Melville's reading of Emerson, and some have pointed to specific parallels to Emerson's essay, "The Transcendentalist."View our full collection of podcasts at our website: https://www.solgoodmedia.com or ...

Few things, even in literature, can really be said to be unique — but Moby Dick is truly unlike anything written before or since. The novel is nominally about the obsessive hunt by the crazed Captain Ahab of the book’s eponymous white whale. But interspersed in that story are digressions, paradoxes, philosophical riffs on whaling and life, and a display of techniques so advanced for its time that some have referred to the 1851 Moby Dick as the first “modern” novel.View our entire collection of podcasts at www.solgood.orgThis is a Librivox Recording. All Librivox recordings are in the ...

This collection is a short-story lover's dream. Included are 17 classic works, representing the finest American writers in the genre. Included are "Bartleby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville, "The One Million Pound Bank Note" by Mark Twain, "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allan Poe, and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving.

With the same vigor he brought to examining man's relationship with nature (and himself) in Moby Dick, Herman Melville turns inward in this deeply textured novella of an unknowable soul, his effect on those who encounter him, and how little we really understand about our fellow creatures. Melville's deft touch in dialogue and description evoke a Wall Street of another age, but lay bare ageless and difficult truths about being. To hear this timeless tale, and to return to it, is to be enriched and prodded at the same time.

In 1797, young Billy Budd is impressed into naval service. It is a perilous time for a British Royal Navy still reeling from mutinies and marauding French ships. When Billy is forcibly transferred to HMS Bellipotent, he evokes the wrath of John Claggart, the ship's Master-at-arms. Claggart falsely accuses Billy of conspiracy to mutiny, a charge that will have a profound effect on the fates of both seamen.

Un abogado que tiene su oficina en Wall Street narra la historia de Bartleby, un peculiar escribiente, quien un día, de repente, deja de escribir amparándose en su famosa fórmula: "Preferiría no hacerlo". Nadie sabe de dónde viene este escribiente, prefiere no decirlo, y su futuro es incierto pues prefiere no hacer nada que altere su situación. El abogado, desconcertado, no sabe cómo actuar ante esta rebeldía, pero al mismo tiempo se siente atraído por tal misteriosa actitud. Su compasión hacia el desobediente escribiente, hace de este personaje un ser tan extraño como el propio Bartleby.

Unter dem finsteren Kapitän Ahab kreuzt eine gemischte Mannschaft rauer Walfänger auf ihrem unheimlichen Schiff über die vier Weltmeere. Sie jagen den weißen Wal, den die Seeleute Moby Dick nennen. Moby Dick hat dem Kapitän ein Bein vom Körper gerissen, und nun verfolgt dieser den weißen Wal mit tödlichem Hass. Aber Kapitän Ahab und seine Mannschaft können ihrem Schicksal nicht entkommen - Moby Dick vernichtet sie und triumphiert.

SEA STORIES tells the entire tale. You will find excerpts of some of the most famous nautical stories of all time. Most of us have passed through a period of life during which we have ardently longed to be, if not actually a rover, a buccaneer, or a pirate, at least and really a sailor!

Typee is an idyll of four months among primitive South Sea islanders. However, the books also shocked its original audience with a truthful account of Polynesian tribal life, including their very liberal sexual practices. Typee won Melville great fame during his life and remains a favorite today.

In Manhattan, an elderly lawyer's business is growing. Having two scriveners in his employ, the lawyer advertises for a third to meet demand. Enter Bartleby, a glum albeit quality scrivener. However, the lawyer quickly discovers that something is off with his new employee. When asked to perform any duties outside of writing, Bartleby responds with a canned "I would prefer not to." Soon Bartleby is living at the office and performing less and less at work.

Herman Melville's high-seas adventure of whaling lore and legend is told through the eyes of Ishmael, a sailor aboard the ship Pequod. Under the command of the relentless madman Captain Ahab, whose sole quest is to hunt down and kill the whale who took his leg, Moby Dick is the tale of an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself.

Billy Budd, Sailor is a classic confrontation between good and evil, and the story of an innocent young man unable to defend himself against a wrongful accusation.

"Typee" (in full: "Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life") is American writer Herman Melville's first book, a classic in the literature of travel and adventure partly based on his actual experiences as a captive on the island Nuku Hiva (which Melville spelled as Nukuheva) in the South Pacific Marquesas Islands, in 1842. The title comes from the name of a valley there called Tai Pi Vai. It was Melville's most popular work during his lifetime, but made him notorious as the "man who lived among the cannibals".