HERMAN MELVILLE.

Authors; Melville, Herman, 1819-1891; Whaling ships; Imprisonment; Literary criticism; Herman Melville (Book); Melville's Thematics of Form: The Great Art of Telling the Truth (Book); Mumford, Lewis, 1895-1990; Dryden, Edgar A.

This paper presents a research guide to the life and works of author Herman Melville. He was born on August 1, 1819 in New York City to Allan and Maria Melville. In 1840 he signed on the whaling ship, Acushnet. Melville was briefly imprisoned in Tahiti for joining with the crew's rebellion. His first novels attracted considerable attention, but during the last 35 years of his life he published little and his literary reputation faded. Lewis Mumford's Herman Melville stood as the authoritative biography for two decades. The mid-century explosion of interest in Melville has created a mature body of criticism that now comprises over 300 book-length studies and 1,000 articles. In Melville's Thematics of Form: The Great Art of Telling the Truth, Edgar A. Dryden argues that Melville believed that only fiction could safely convey truth because it allows the reader an indirect revelation of existence.