The life of Herman Melville

Herman Melville was born August 1, 1819 in New York City to Allan Melvill and Maria Gansevoort Melvill. The surname was usually spelled without the final “e” until Maria added it after her husband’s death. His father was an import merchant specializing in accessories. Once his business started to decline, Allan started recklessly borrowing money. The Melvill family moved northward to Manhattan, which many believe was the family’s disguise that their fortunes were declining. In October of 1830, Allan and then eleven-year-old Herman fled to Albany, where Maria and the rest of the children had been living. Allan had lost most of his money and was almost to the point of bankruptcy at this time. Many people say that this was the end of Herman’s boyhood. A few years after falling into bankruptcy, Allan Melvill died, leaving behind his wife and children who had barely anything. Herman and his brother were forced to withdraw from school because the family no longer had the finances.

After another string of bad luck; Maria, the younger children and Herman moved to the village of Lansingburgh, ten miles north of Albany. In the spring of 1839, Herman began his near 4 years of sea adventures which would go on to inspire his books Typee and Omoo. After a few years of writing, Herman and Elizabeth Shaw promised themselves to each other. They would be married on August 4, 1847 and go on to have four children together. In 1850 the couple purchased a farmhouse in Pittsfield, Massachusetts called Arrowhead.

Over the next several years, he would go on to write Redburn, White-Jacket and the first chapters of what would become Moby-Dick. After months of writing, Moby-Dick was published in 1851. During Herman’s time at Arrowhead, he became good friends with author Nathaniel Hawthorne, who inspired him during his writing of Moby-Dick. By 1853, after Herman had written Pierre, the men’s friendship had become less casual. Some speculate that Melville may have gotten close to a secret in Hawthorne’s personal life and Hawthorne had pushed him away. However, no one truly knows what tore these two apart. Later that year, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” was published in two installments, in November and December of 1852 in Putnam’s Monthly Magazine. Five years after “Bartleby, the Scrivener” was published, Melville wrote his last full-length novel, The Confidence-Man. In the hopes of making more money Melville entered the field of lecturing and from 1857-1860 traveled around the South Seas mainly, to lecture. In 1867, Elizabeth and Herman’s oldest son Malcolm shot himself in what appeared to be suicide. Several years after his eldest sons death, Melville’s 16,000-line epic poem, Clarel, was published in 1876. Peter Gansevoort, his uncle paid the costs for this publication. Despite having spent many years writing this poem, it’s publication failed horribly and only about 113 were ever sold.

As his professional and personal lives were declining, Melville published two collections of poems for his friends and family, John Marr and Timoleon in 1888 and 1891. One of the poems interested him so much so that he began to rework it as a novella. Melville worked on it on and off for many years before dying on September 28, 1891, leaving it unfinished. It is now known as Billy Budd, Sailor. Although Herman Melville died at the decline of his career, his works have been and will continue to be read by many generations to come.

 “For some readers, the Melville who speaks most directly to the mind and heart is the chastened author of Billy Budd. For others, the true Melville will always be the boisterous young author of Moby-Dick. Still others have found, with replenished gratitude, that there is a season in life for each” –Andrew Delbanco 

Delbanco, Andrew. Melville: His World and Work.

Hayes, Kevin J. The Cambridge Introduction to Herman Melville.

Bartleby the Scrivener, let's talk about it

           Bartleby the Scrivener follows four scriveners that are employed by an elderly lawyer, who also acts as the narrator in this story. The narrator begins by telling the readers a little about his background. He then goes on to give the reader a description of his then, three employees. First up is Turkey. He “was a short, pursy Englishman of about my own age, that is, somewhere not far from sixty.” Next, “Nippers, the second on my list, was a whiskered, sallow, and, upon the whole, rather piratical-looking young man of about five and twenty.” “Ginger Nut, the third on my list, was a lad some twelve years old.”  

            The lawyer then proceeds to describe his premises. Ground glass folding doors divided his premises into two parts, one of which was occupied by his scriveners, the other by the lawyer. He decides to place Bartleby in a corner by the folding doors, but on his side of them. Bartleby’s desk was close up to a small window that had a view of nothing, “at the present”.

            The story goes on to account the daily activity of the scriveners and their duties. Bartleby at first, has done a good job but his work performance has started to dwindle away the farther into the story one gets. “I would prefer not to” has become his main phrase and eventually, is all he ever says. The lawyer and three other scriveners become maddened by Bartleby’s stubborn behavior. As the story comes to a close, Bartleby eventually refuses to leave the lawyers office and even after the lawyer is forced to move his office, Bartleby still remains there. Bartleby is then arrested and put into jail. After the lawyer goes to the jail to arrange to have Bartleby fed well he visits him a few days later. The lawyer learns that Bartleby has been refusing to eat anything and when he goes out into the jail’s courtyard to talk to Bartleby, who appears to be sleeping under a tree, he sees that Bartleby is, in fact, dead.

            The lawyer ends the story by giving us the only clue he has as to who Bartleby was. He mentions that he was a clerk in the Dead Letter Office in Washington where he would have to sort through all of the letters and/or other things the soldiers carried that were still on them after they died. He thinks, that this is why Bartleby ended up the way he was.

            Although it is a long story, I really enjoyed Bartleby the Scrivener. However, I can’t really fully explain why. Something about the story got to me and once I started reading it I couldn’t stop reading it. I felt like I could picture the story in my head while I was reading. I feel like this quality, is one of the important qualities that make a good story. Bartleby can speak to all generations in different ways and that is why, I highly recommend you read it. 

Favorite quotes said by Melville himself:

Quotes that inspire myself and I hope will inspire you also.

1. "Life's a voyage that's homeward bound."
2. "I know not all that may be coming but be it what it will, I will go to it laughing."
3. "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."
4. "To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be that have tried it."
5. "In our own hearts, we mold the whole world's hereafters; and in our won hearts we fashion our own gods."