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On September 28, 1891, Herman Melville, American writer (Billy Budd, Moby-Dick), died at the age of 72. From the article:
"Herman Melville
Herman Melville Biography
(1819–1891)
Celebrated American author Herman Melville wrote 'Moby-Dick' and several other sea-adventure novels before turning to poetry later in his literary career.
Who Was Herman Melville?
Herman Melville was born in New York City in 1819. He worked as a crew member on several vessels beginning in 1839, his experiences spawning his successful early novels Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847). Subsequent books, including his masterpiece Moby-Dick (1851), sold poorly, and by the 1860s Melville had turned to poetry. Following his death in New York City in 1891, he posthumously came to be regarded as one of the great American writers.
Early Life
Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1, 1819, to Allan and Maria Gansevoort Melvill (Maria added the "e" to the family name following her husband's death). In the mid-1820s, young Melville fell ill to scarlet fever, and though he regained his health not long afterward, his vision was left permanently impaired by the illness.
The family had enjoyed a prosperous life for many years due to Allan's success as a high-end importer and merchant. However, he was also borrowing heavily to finance his business interests, and after he moved the family upstate to Albany in a failed attempt to branch into the fur trade in 1830, the family's fortune took a big hit. When Allan died suddenly in 1832, finances dwindled significantly.
Allan's oldest son, Gansevoort, took control of the family's fur and cap business in New York following his father's death, while Melville clerked at a bank to help make ends meet. During the 1830s, he was enrolled at Albany Academy and Albany Classical School, where he studied classic literature and began writing poems, essays and short stories. He left Albany in 1837 for a teaching job in Massachusetts, but found the work to be unfulfilling and soon returned to New York.
That year, Gansevoort's fur and cap business folded, putting the Melvilles back into a dire financial situation. The family relocated to Lansingburgh, New York, and Melville enrolled at Lansingburgh Academy to study surveying, hopeful of gaining employment with the newly initiated Erie Canal project.
Sea Voyages and Early Writing Success
Unable to gain a coveted job, Melville instead followed Gansevoort's suggestion to work as a crew member on a boat. In 1839, he signed on as a cabin boy for a merchant ship called the St. Lawrence, which traveled from New York City to Liverpool, England, and back.
In 1841, Melville embarked on his second sea voyage after being hired to work aboard the Acushnet, a whaling ship. His subsequent wild journey provided the sparks for his yet-to-be-realized literary career: After arriving at the Marquesas Islands of Polynesia in 1842, Melville and a crewmate deserted the ship and, soon after, were captured by local cannibals. Although Melville was treated well, he escaped after four months on board another whaling ship, the Lucy Ann, and was jailed after joining the crew in a mutiny. He eventually wound up in Hawaii before catching a ride back to Massachusetts on the USS United States, arriving home more than three years after he left.
Melville immediately set about putting pen to paper to capture his experiences. Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846), a combination of his personal tales and imagined events, drew attention for its detailed descriptions of seafaring life and a seemingly too-wild-to-believe plot. The author followed in 1847 with an equally successful sequel, Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas.
His career on the ascent, in 1847, Melville married Elizabeth Shaw, daughter of the chief justice of Massachusetts. They would go on to have four children.
'Moby-Dick' and Other Works
Melville continued with the sea-adventure theme for Mardi: and a Voyage Thither (1849), Redburn: His First Voyage (1849) and White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War (1850).
In 1851, the author delivered what would become his signature work, Moby-Dick (initially titled The Whale). Moby-Dick, categorized as American Romanticism, is based on both Melville's years of experience aboard whaleships and the real-life disaster of the Essex whaleship.
Traveling from Nantucket, Massachusetts, to South America, the Essex met its doom in the Pacific Ocean in November 1820, when a sperm whale attacked and destroyed the ship. The crew, adrift in their small whaleboats, faced storms, thirst, illness and starvation, and were even reduced to cannibalism for survival. However, succeeding in one of the great open-boat journeys of all time, the few survivors were picked up off South America. Their story, spread widely in America in the 19th century, provided inspiration for Melville's tale of a ship captain seeking revenge on an elusive whale.
While Moby-Dick eventually achieved immense critical acclaim, Melville didn't live to witness that success. In fact, the book didn't bring him any wealth or respect during his lifetime. Early critics were unimpressed by the novel; an 1851 article in the Illustrated London News called it "Herman Melville's last and best and most wildly imaginative story," and a testament to his "reckless imaginative power." The article went on to note Melville's "great aptitude for quaint and original philosophical speculation, degenerating, however, too often into rhapsody and purposeless extravagance."
Moby-Dick sold poorly, as did subsequent novels like Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (1852) and Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (1855). Following the release of The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade in 1857, Melville all but gave up on writing novels.
Later Years, Death and Legacy
Melville delivered a series of lectures throughout the late 1850s, and the following decade he began a 20-year career as a customs inspector in New York City. He also turned his creative interests to poetry during this period, publishing a collection called Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War in 1866. In 1876, he published the epic Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land, based on a previous trip to the region.
Melville had finally begun work on another novel when he died of a heart attack in New York City on September 28, 1891. His early fame had vanished by then, but many of his books were eventually reprinted, and his name began slowly gaining traction in the literary world. By the early 1920s, Melville had become a well-known figure among readers and critics alike; his last novel also saw the light of day, published in 1924 as Billy Budd, Sailor.
Today, Melville is regarded as one of America's greatest writers, his masterpiece Moby-Dick adapted for the big screen in 1956 and enduring as a staple of school reading lists. Interest in Melville and his works spiked again in 2015 with the release of the Ron Howard-directed In the Heart of the Sea, about the ill-fated voyage of the Essex."
"Herman Melville
Herman Melville Biography
(1819–1891)
Celebrated American author Herman Melville wrote 'Moby-Dick' and several other sea-adventure novels before turning to poetry later in his literary career.
Who Was Herman Melville?
Herman Melville was born in New York City in 1819. He worked as a crew member on several vessels beginning in 1839, his experiences spawning his successful early novels Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847). Subsequent books, including his masterpiece Moby-Dick (1851), sold poorly, and by the 1860s Melville had turned to poetry. Following his death in New York City in 1891, he posthumously came to be regarded as one of the great American writers.
Early Life
Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1, 1819, to Allan and Maria Gansevoort Melvill (Maria added the "e" to the family name following her husband's death). In the mid-1820s, young Melville fell ill to scarlet fever, and though he regained his health not long afterward, his vision was left permanently impaired by the illness.
The family had enjoyed a prosperous life for many years due to Allan's success as a high-end importer and merchant. However, he was also borrowing heavily to finance his business interests, and after he moved the family upstate to Albany in a failed attempt to branch into the fur trade in 1830, the family's fortune took a big hit. When Allan died suddenly in 1832, finances dwindled significantly.
Allan's oldest son, Gansevoort, took control of the family's fur and cap business in New York following his father's death, while Melville clerked at a bank to help make ends meet. During the 1830s, he was enrolled at Albany Academy and Albany Classical School, where he studied classic literature and began writing poems, essays and short stories. He left Albany in 1837 for a teaching job in Massachusetts, but found the work to be unfulfilling and soon returned to New York.
That year, Gansevoort's fur and cap business folded, putting the Melvilles back into a dire financial situation. The family relocated to Lansingburgh, New York, and Melville enrolled at Lansingburgh Academy to study surveying, hopeful of gaining employment with the newly initiated Erie Canal project.
Sea Voyages and Early Writing Success
Unable to gain a coveted job, Melville instead followed Gansevoort's suggestion to work as a crew member on a boat. In 1839, he signed on as a cabin boy for a merchant ship called the St. Lawrence, which traveled from New York City to Liverpool, England, and back.
In 1841, Melville embarked on his second sea voyage after being hired to work aboard the Acushnet, a whaling ship. His subsequent wild journey provided the sparks for his yet-to-be-realized literary career: After arriving at the Marquesas Islands of Polynesia in 1842, Melville and a crewmate deserted the ship and, soon after, were captured by local cannibals. Although Melville was treated well, he escaped after four months on board another whaling ship, the Lucy Ann, and was jailed after joining the crew in a mutiny. He eventually wound up in Hawaii before catching a ride back to Massachusetts on the USS United States, arriving home more than three years after he left.
Melville immediately set about putting pen to paper to capture his experiences. Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846), a combination of his personal tales and imagined events, drew attention for its detailed descriptions of seafaring life and a seemingly too-wild-to-believe plot. The author followed in 1847 with an equally successful sequel, Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas.
His career on the ascent, in 1847, Melville married Elizabeth Shaw, daughter of the chief justice of Massachusetts. They would go on to have four children.
'Moby-Dick' and Other Works
Melville continued with the sea-adventure theme for Mardi: and a Voyage Thither (1849), Redburn: His First Voyage (1849) and White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War (1850).
In 1851, the author delivered what would become his signature work, Moby-Dick (initially titled The Whale). Moby-Dick, categorized as American Romanticism, is based on both Melville's years of experience aboard whaleships and the real-life disaster of the Essex whaleship.
Traveling from Nantucket, Massachusetts, to South America, the Essex met its doom in the Pacific Ocean in November 1820, when a sperm whale attacked and destroyed the ship. The crew, adrift in their small whaleboats, faced storms, thirst, illness and starvation, and were even reduced to cannibalism for survival. However, succeeding in one of the great open-boat journeys of all time, the few survivors were picked up off South America. Their story, spread widely in America in the 19th century, provided inspiration for Melville's tale of a ship captain seeking revenge on an elusive whale.
While Moby-Dick eventually achieved immense critical acclaim, Melville didn't live to witness that success. In fact, the book didn't bring him any wealth or respect during his lifetime. Early critics were unimpressed by the novel; an 1851 article in the Illustrated London News called it "Herman Melville's last and best and most wildly imaginative story," and a testament to his "reckless imaginative power." The article went on to note Melville's "great aptitude for quaint and original philosophical speculation, degenerating, however, too often into rhapsody and purposeless extravagance."
Moby-Dick sold poorly, as did subsequent novels like Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (1852) and Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (1855). Following the release of The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade in 1857, Melville all but gave up on writing novels.
Later Years, Death and Legacy
Melville delivered a series of lectures throughout the late 1850s, and the following decade he began a 20-year career as a customs inspector in New York City. He also turned his creative interests to poetry during this period, publishing a collection called Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War in 1866. In 1876, he published the epic Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land, based on a previous trip to the region.
Melville had finally begun work on another novel when he died of a heart attack in New York City on September 28, 1891. His early fame had vanished by then, but many of his books were eventually reprinted, and his name began slowly gaining traction in the literary world. By the early 1920s, Melville had become a well-known figure among readers and critics alike; his last novel also saw the light of day, published in 1924 as Billy Budd, Sailor.
Today, Melville is regarded as one of America's greatest writers, his masterpiece Moby-Dick adapted for the big screen in 1956 and enduring as a staple of school reading lists. Interest in Melville and his works spiked again in 2015 with the release of the Ron Howard-directed In the Heart of the Sea, about the ill-fated voyage of the Essex."
Herman Melville
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Biography - Herman Melville (FreeYouSapiens)
Herman Melville's Biograpy
Thank you, my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that American novelist, short story writer, and poet Herman Melville died at the age of 72 on September 28, 1891.
1. Melville's 'Moby Dick' is a wonderful classic novel which captures the imagination of teenage boys as well as children ands their parents read it to them.
2. Melville’s first published book of poems was Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866), a meditation. He wrote this a trip to the Union Civil War front with his brother in 1864 {siege of Petersburg/Richmond.
Sadly in his lifetime,. like many great authors and artists, his writings were not recognized until after his death.
Rest in peace Herman Melville
Biography - Herman Melville
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd38e_R4cjU
Images:
1. younger Herman Melville
2. 1984 20 cent Literary Arts: Herman Melville postage stamp Scott # 2094
3. Herman Melville 'Friendship at first sight, like love at first sight is said to be the only truth.'
4. Herman Melville 'He who has never failed somehere, that man can not be great.
Background from poets.org/poetsorg/poet/herman-melville
"Herman Melville
Born on August 1, 1819, into a once-prominent New York family, Herman Melville was raised in an atmosphere of financial instability and genteel pretense. After his father’s death, Melville attempted to support his family by working various jobs, from banking to teaching school. However, it was his adventures as a seaman in 1845 that inspired Melville to write. On one voyage, he was captured and held for several months by the Typees; when he returned unscathed, friends encouraged Melville to write the escapade down. Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life became his first literary success; the continuation of his adventures appeared in his second book, Omoo.
After ending his seafaring career, Melville’s concern over his sporadic education inspired him to read voraciously. In 1847, he married Elizabeth Shaw and moved first to New York and then the Berkshires. There he lived near the reclusive writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was to become a close friend and confidant. Intoxicated by metaphysics, Melville penned Mardi and a Voyage Thither, a philosophical allegory. The book failed, and though discouraged, Melville dashed off Redburn, a comedy. Although the book proved a financial success, Melville immediately returned to the symbolic in his next novel, White-Jacket; or, the World in a Man-of-War. In 1851, he completed his masterpiece, Moby-Dick, or the Whale. Considered by modern scholars to be one of the great American novels, the book was dismissed by Melville’s contemporaries and he made little money from the effort. The other two novels that today form the core of the Melville canon—Pierre; or the Ambiguities and The Confidence Man—met with a similar fate.
During the 1850s, Melville supported his family by farming and writing stories for magazines. He later traveled to Europe, where he saw his friend Hawthorne for the last time. During that visit in 1856, it was clear to Melville that his novel-writing career was finished. In 1857, after returning to New York still unnoticed by the literary public, he stopped writing fiction. He became a customs inspector, a job he held for twenty years. And he began to write poetry.
The Civil War made a deep impression on Melville and became the principal subject of his verse. With so many family members participating in various aspects of the war, Melville found himself intimately connected to events, and also sought out conflict for himself. He observed the Senate debating secession during a visit to Washington D.C. in 1861, and made a remarkable trip to the front with his brother in 1864. The volume is regarded by many critics as a work as ambitious and rich as any of his novels. Unfortunately, Melville’s remains relatively unrecognized as a poet.
Herman Melville died of a heart attack on September 28, 1891, at the age of 72. At that time, he was almost completely forgotten by all but a few admirers. During the week of his death, The New York Times wrote: “There has died and been buried in this city…a man who is so little known, even by name, to the generation now in the vigor of life that only one newspaper contained an obituary account of him, and this was but of three or four lines.” It wasn’t until the 1920s that the literary public began to recognize Melville as one of America’s greatest writers."
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1sg-dan-capriSGT Robert R.CPT Tommy CurtisSGT (Join to see) SGT Steve McFarlandCol Carl WhickerSGT Mark AndersonSSG Michael NollSFC(P) (Join to see)CPT Daniel CoxSFC David Reid, M.S, PHR, SHRM-CP, DTMSFC Jack ChampionA1C Ian WilliamsCpl James R. " Jim" Gossett Jr SPC Jon O.SP5 Jeannie Carle
1. Melville's 'Moby Dick' is a wonderful classic novel which captures the imagination of teenage boys as well as children ands their parents read it to them.
2. Melville’s first published book of poems was Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866), a meditation. He wrote this a trip to the Union Civil War front with his brother in 1864 {siege of Petersburg/Richmond.
Sadly in his lifetime,. like many great authors and artists, his writings were not recognized until after his death.
Rest in peace Herman Melville
Biography - Herman Melville
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd38e_R4cjU
Images:
1. younger Herman Melville
2. 1984 20 cent Literary Arts: Herman Melville postage stamp Scott # 2094
3. Herman Melville 'Friendship at first sight, like love at first sight is said to be the only truth.'
4. Herman Melville 'He who has never failed somehere, that man can not be great.
Background from poets.org/poetsorg/poet/herman-melville
"Herman Melville
Born on August 1, 1819, into a once-prominent New York family, Herman Melville was raised in an atmosphere of financial instability and genteel pretense. After his father’s death, Melville attempted to support his family by working various jobs, from banking to teaching school. However, it was his adventures as a seaman in 1845 that inspired Melville to write. On one voyage, he was captured and held for several months by the Typees; when he returned unscathed, friends encouraged Melville to write the escapade down. Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life became his first literary success; the continuation of his adventures appeared in his second book, Omoo.
After ending his seafaring career, Melville’s concern over his sporadic education inspired him to read voraciously. In 1847, he married Elizabeth Shaw and moved first to New York and then the Berkshires. There he lived near the reclusive writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was to become a close friend and confidant. Intoxicated by metaphysics, Melville penned Mardi and a Voyage Thither, a philosophical allegory. The book failed, and though discouraged, Melville dashed off Redburn, a comedy. Although the book proved a financial success, Melville immediately returned to the symbolic in his next novel, White-Jacket; or, the World in a Man-of-War. In 1851, he completed his masterpiece, Moby-Dick, or the Whale. Considered by modern scholars to be one of the great American novels, the book was dismissed by Melville’s contemporaries and he made little money from the effort. The other two novels that today form the core of the Melville canon—Pierre; or the Ambiguities and The Confidence Man—met with a similar fate.
During the 1850s, Melville supported his family by farming and writing stories for magazines. He later traveled to Europe, where he saw his friend Hawthorne for the last time. During that visit in 1856, it was clear to Melville that his novel-writing career was finished. In 1857, after returning to New York still unnoticed by the literary public, he stopped writing fiction. He became a customs inspector, a job he held for twenty years. And he began to write poetry.
The Civil War made a deep impression on Melville and became the principal subject of his verse. With so many family members participating in various aspects of the war, Melville found himself intimately connected to events, and also sought out conflict for himself. He observed the Senate debating secession during a visit to Washington D.C. in 1861, and made a remarkable trip to the front with his brother in 1864. The volume is regarded by many critics as a work as ambitious and rich as any of his novels. Unfortunately, Melville’s remains relatively unrecognized as a poet.
Herman Melville died of a heart attack on September 28, 1891, at the age of 72. At that time, he was almost completely forgotten by all but a few admirers. During the week of his death, The New York Times wrote: “There has died and been buried in this city…a man who is so little known, even by name, to the generation now in the vigor of life that only one newspaper contained an obituary account of him, and this was but of three or four lines.” It wasn’t until the 1920s that the literary public began to recognize Melville as one of America’s greatest writers."
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Great bio of great author, I think everyone had Moby Dick as required reading.
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