Herman Melville in Context

Description

Herman Melville in Context provides the fullest introduction in one volume to the multifaceted life and times of Herman Melville, a towering figure in nineteenth-century American and world literature. The book grounds the study of Herman Melville's writings to the world that influenced their composition, publication and recognition, making it a valuable resource to scholars, teachers, students and general readers. Bringing together contributions covering a wide range of topics, the collection of essays covers the geographical, social, cultural and literary contexts of Melville's life and works, as well as its literary reception. Herman Melville in Context will enable readers to approach Melville's writings with fuller insight, and to read and understand them in a way that approximates the way they were read and understood in his time.

Kevin J. Hayes, Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Central Oklahoma, now lives and writes in Toledo, Ohio. He is the author of several books, including The Library of William Byrd of Westover (1997), for which he received the Virginia Library History Award presented by the Library of Virginia and the Virginia Center for the Book; Melville's Folk Roots (1999); An American Cycling Odyssey, 1887 (2002); The Cambridge Introduction to Herman Melville (Cambridge, 2007); The Mind of a Patriot: Patrick Henry and the World of Ideas (2008); The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson (2008); and two volumes in Reaktion's Critical Lives, Edgar Allan Poe (2009) and Herman Melville (2017). His works have been translated into Greek, Italian, Persian, Spanish, and Turkish.

'This Melville companion is neither an essay collection nor a reference book but rather a series of 34 sprightly, cogent treatments illuminating and contextualizing aspects of Melville. Recommended.' Choice 'Happily, the significant strengths of this collection and the models they provide for sound scholarship and interpretation offer, at least, a partial solution.' Steven Olsen-Smith, Leviathan