Melville’s writing career, much of which was inspired by his travels, began with the publication of Typee in 1846, followed relatively shortly after by Omoo (1847). The reaction to these first two novels was encouraging enough to make Melville believe, initially, that he had a future as a professional writer. For a short time, contemporaries thought of him as one of the bright young novelists of America. These first two books are based on the author’s experiences in the South Seas—Typee on his life with the cannibals and Omoo on his experiences in Tahiti. They purport to be fairly factual adventure stories allowing the audience an unusual view of Polynesian life, and each was a modest critical success.
Mardi (1849) was not. It opens with apparent realism as the narrator deserts his whaling ship, but it develops into a fantasy that readers rejected. Even Melville called it a “chartless voyage.” Melville returned to the approach of his first two books in Redburn (1849), a partly autobiographical story of the reminiscences of a “Son-of-a-Gentleman” in the merchant service. Much of White Jacket (1850) is a fictional account of Melville’s experiences aboard the U. S. frigate United States. The narrator exposes the tyranny and injustice of life aboard a warship, from the point of view of an enlisted man. Melville claimed that he wrote these two novels strictly for money, and they did have limited success.
Melville produced his finest book, Moby-Dick, in 1851. Only a few critics recognized the genius of the work, and Melville had serious doubts about his future career. Pierre (1852) was too ambiguous and complex for Melville’s audience. The story, somewhat autobiographical, deals with a young writer who seeks strict honesty but finds only disaster for himself and those around him. Israel Potter (1855), somewhat more successful, was first published as a magazine serial. It is a rewrite of a story about an American Revolutionary veteran who returns to America after fifty years of adventures abroad, having learned to be a survivor through the application of good sense. The Piazza Tales (1856) contains some of Melville’s finest writing, shorter works such as “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” a consideration of the values of Wall Street; the dark “Benito Cereno”; and a work that has grown in respect over the years, “The Encantadas,” a philosophical look into the Galapagos Islands. The Confidence-Man (1857), an enigmatic consideration of identity and self-deception taking place on a Mississippi River steamboat, was the last work of fiction that Melville published in his lifetime. These last works, especially The Piazza Tales, found some small audience, but Melville was terribly discouraged and withdrew from his efforts to support himself and his family through writing.
Despite his disappointment, Melville did continue to write part-time. During the final days of the Civil War, he created some moving poetry that he eventually published in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine and in a volume titled Battle-Pieces (1866). A prose “Supplement” calls for decency on the part of the victorious North during the reconstruction period, a position that Abraham Lincoln espoused but did not live to bring into effect. Again, contemporary reviews were tepid.
Melville published three more books in his declining years, all at his own or a sponsor’s expense. Clarel (1876) is a long poem based on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. While ambitious, it does not attract many readers even today. John Marr and Other Sailors (1888) is a collection of poems based on Melville’s life as a seaman. Timoleon and Other Ventures in Minor Verse (1891) is a collection of poetry partly based on his travels. These last two were handsome little private editions of only twenty-five copies each.
Melville left a few unpublished poems and, most notably, the fine novella Billy Budd, Foretopman, which was finally published in 1924. Although Melville was thought to be one of the finer young writers in America at the end of the 1840s, by his death he was nearly forgotten. Only one obituary noted his passing on September 28, 1891.
