Who is Herman Melville

Herman Melville (born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. Although his reputation was not high at the time of his death, the 1919 centennial of his birth was the starting point of a Melville revival, and Moby-Dick grew to be considered one of the great American novels.

Melville was born in New York City, the third child of a prosperous merchant whose death in 1832 left the family in dire financial straits. He took to sea in 1839 as a common sailor on a merchant ship and then on the whaler Acushnet, but he ...
Read Full Biography

---

Herman Melville Poems

• Inscription For Graves At Pea Ridge, Arkansas
  Let none misgive we died amiss
  When here we strove in furious fight:
  Furious it was; nathless was this
  Better than tranquil plight, ...
• Apathy And Enthusiasm
  (1860-1.)
  
  
  I ...
• The Armies Of The Wilderness
  (1683-64.)
  
  
  I ...
• Battle Of Stone River, Tennessee
  A View from Oxford Cloisters.
  (January, 1863.)
  
  ...
• The Battle For The Mississipppi
  (April, 1862.)
  
  
  When Israel camped by Migdol hoar, ...

Read All Poems

---

Herman Melville Quotes

• There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes the whole universe for a vast practical joke.
• A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.
• We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.
• We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.
• We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.

Read All Quotes

---

Comments about Herman Melville

• Nerdd131: “it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” – herman melville
• Sociotrip: “it is not down in any map; true places never are.” – herman melville
• Darnelss37: “it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” – herman melville
• Feeliks59: “it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” – herman melville
• W_tripsolution: “it is not down in any map; true places never are.” – herman melville

Read All Comments