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in 1846, in his Colonial and Home Library, as ‘A Narrative of a Four Months’ Residence among the Natives of a Valley of the Marquesas Islands; or, a Peep at Polynesian Life,’ or, more briefly, ‘Melville’s Marquesas Islands.’ It was issued in America with the author’s own title, ‘Typee,’ and in the outward shape of a work of fiction. Mr. Melville found himself famous at once. Many discussions were carried on as to the genuineness of the author’s name and the reality of the events portrayed, but English and American critics alike recognised the book’s importance as a contribution to literature.
Melville, in a letter to Hawthorne, speaks of himself as having no development at all until his twenty-fifth year, the time of his return from the Pacific; but surely the process of development must have been well advanced to permit of so virile and artistic a creation as ‘Typee.’ While the narrative does not always run smoothly, yet the style for the most part is graceful and alluring, so that we pass from one scene of Pacific enchantment to another quite oblivious of the vast amount of descriptive detail which is being poured out upon us. It is the varying fortune of the hero which engrosses our attention. We follow his adventures with breathless interest, or luxuriate with him in the leafy bowers of the ‘Happy Valley,’ surrounded by joyous children of nature. When all is ended, we then for the first time realise that we know these people and their ways as if we too had dwelt among them.
I do not believe that ‘Typee’ will ever lose its position as a classic of American Literature. The pioneer in South Sea romance—for the mechanical descriptions of earlier voyagers are not worthy of comparison—this book has as yet met with no superior, even in French literature; nor has it met with a rival in any other language than the French. The character of ‘Fayaway,’ and, no less, William S. Mayo’s ‘Kaloolah,’ the enchanting dreams of many a youthful heart, will retain their charm; and this in spite of endless variations by modern explorers in the same domain. A faint type of both characters may be found in the Surinam Yarico of Captain John Gabriel Stedman, whose ‘Narrative of a Five Years’ Expedition’ appeared in 1796.
‘Typee,’ as written, contained passages reflecting with considerable severity on the methods pursued by missionaries in the South Seas. The manuscript was printed in a complete form in England, and created much discussion on this account, Melville being accused of bitterness; but he asserted his lack of prejudice. The passages referred to were omitted in the first and all subsequent American editions. They have been restored in the present issue, which is complete save for a few paragraphs excluded by written direction of the author. I have, with the consent of his family, changed the long and cumbersome sub-title of the book, calling it a ‘Real-Romance of the South Seas,’ as best expressing its nature.
The success of his first volume encouraged Melville to proceed in his work, and ‘Omoo,’ the sequel to ‘Typee,’ appeared in England and America in 1847. Here we leave, for the most part, the dreamy pictures of island life, and find ourselves sharing the extremely realistic discomforts of a Sydney whaler in the early forties. The rebellious crew’s experiences in the Society Islands are quite as realistic as events on board ship and very entertaining, while the whimsical character, Dr. Long Ghost, next to Captain Ahab in ‘Moby Dick,’ is Melville’s most striking delineation. The errors of the South Sea missions are pointed out with even more force than in ‘Typee,’ and it is a fact that both these books have ever since been of the greatest value to outgoing missionaries on account of the exact information contained in them with respect to the islanders.
Melville’s power in describing and investing with romance scenes and incidents witnessed and participated in by himself, and his frequent failure of success as an inventor of characters and situations, were early pointed out by his critics. More recently Mr. Henry S. Salt has drawn the same distinction very carefully in an excellent article contributed to the Scottish Art Review. In a prefatory note to ‘Mardi’ (1849), Melville declares that, as his former books have been received as romance instead of reality, he will now try his hand at pure fiction. ‘Mardi’ may be called a splendid failure. It must have been soon after the completion of ‘Omoo’ that Melville began to study the writings of Sir Thomas Browne. Heretofore our author’s style was rough in places, but marvellously simple and direct. ‘Mardi’ is burdened with an over-rich diction, which Melville never entirely outgrew. The scene of this romance, which opens well, is laid in the South Seas, but everything soon becomes overdrawn and fantastical, and the thread of the story loses itself in a mystical allegory.
‘Redburn,’ already mentioned, succeeded ‘Mardi’ in the same year, and was a partial return to the author’s earlier style. In ‘White-Jacket; or, the World in a Man-of-War’ (1850), Melville almost regained it. This book has no equal as a picture of life aboard a sailing man-of-war, the lights and shadows of naval existence being well contrasted.
With ‘Moby Dick; or, the Whale’ (1851), Melville reached the topmost notch of his fame. The book represents, to a certain extent, the conflict between the author’s earlier and later methods of composition, but the gigantic conception of the ‘White Whale,’ as Hawthorne expressed it, permeates the whole work, and lifts it bodily into the highest domain of romance. ‘Moby Dick’ contains an immense amount of information concerning the habits of the whale and the methods of its capture, but this is characteristically introduced in a way not to interfere with the narrative. The chapter entitled ‘Stubb Kills a Whale’ ranks with the choicest examples of descriptive literature.
‘Moby Dick’ appeared, and Melville enjoyed to the full the enhanced reputation it brought him. He did not, however, take warning from ‘Mardi,’ but allowed himself to plunge more deeply into the sea of philosophy and fantasy.
‘Pierre; or, the Ambiguities’ (1852) was published, and there ensued a long series of hostile criticisms, ending with a severe, though impartial, article by Fitz-James O’Brien in Putnam’s Monthly. About the same time the whole stock of the author’s books was destroyed by fire, keeping them out of print at a critical moment; and public interest, which until then had been on the increase, gradually began to diminish.
After this Mr. Melville contributed several short stories to Putnam’s Monthly and Harper’s Magazine. Those in the former periodical were collected in a volume as Piazza Tales (1856); and of these ‘Benito Cereno’ and ‘The Bell Tower’ are equal to his best previous efforts.
‘Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile’ (1855), first printed as a serial in Putnam’s, is an historical romance of the American Revolution, based on the hero’s own account of his adventures, as given in a little volume picked up by Mr. Melville at a book-stall. The story is well told, but the book is hardly worthy of the author of ‘Typee.’ ‘The Confidence Man’ (1857), his last serious effort in prose fiction, does not seem to require criticism.
Mr. Melville’s pen had rested for nearly ten years, when it was again taken up to celebrate the events of the Civil War. ‘Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War’ appeared in 1866. Most of these poems originated, according to the author, in an impulse imparted by the fall of Richmond; but they have as subjects all the chief incidents of the struggle. The best of them are ‘The Stone Fleet,’ ‘In the Prison Pen,’ ‘The College Colonel,’ ‘The March to the Sea,’ ‘Running the Batteries,’ and ‘Sheridan at Cedar Creek.’ Some of these had a wide circulation in the press, and were preserved in various anthologies. ‘Clarel, a Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land’ (1876), is a long mystical poem requiring, as some one has said, a dictionary, a cyclopaedia, and a copy of the Bible for its elucidation. In the two privately printed volumes, the arrangement of which occupied Mr. Melville during his last illness, there are several fine lyrics. The titles of these books are, ‘John Marr and Other Sailors’ (1888), and ‘Timoleon’ (1891).
There is no question that Mr. Melville’s absorption in philosophical studies was quite as responsible as the failure of his later books for his cessation from literary productiveness. That he sometimes realised the situation will be seen by a passage in ‘Moby Dick’:—
‘Didn’t I tell you so?’ said Flask. ‘Yes, you’ll soon see this right whale’s head hoisted up opposite that parmacetti’s.’
‘In good time Flask’s saying proved true. As before, the