Showing results by author "Herman Melville" in All Categories

Ahab is the captain of a whaling ship named the Pequod. His great obsession with the giant whale, Moby Dick, makes him embark on a dangerous voyage. Some years before, the captain lost his leg because of the whale and now Ahab’s main desire is to take his revenge on the whale by killing it. He is so obsessed, that Ahab is ready to sacrifice everything he has, including the Pequod and all the members of his crew, and even his own life.

A deeply influential novel from one of America's greatest authors, White-Jacket presents a view of life aboard a 19th-century navy ship that is equal parts humorous and sobering. Published a year before his masterpiece Moby-Dick, White-Jacket is based on Herman Melville's own experiences aboard the USS United States from 1843 to 1844.

Bartleby, un hombre discreto y apocado, es contratado por un abogado para trabajarcomo copista judicial. Pronto descubrirá que la actitud de Bartleby es extraña y sorprendente. Con serenidad y educación se niega a realizar las tareas que le encomiendan: "Preferiría no hacerlo", esa es su respuesta. Bartleby ha perdido toda motivación y apetencia hacia la vida, no hay nada que desee hacer. Afronta los días impasible, aletargado, en silencio. El abogado, que se debateentre la compasión y la irritación, busca una respuesta al porqué de su comportamiento.

Representing the dark underbelly of Romanticism and beyond, these stories reach the shadowy corners of the human soul as seen through the writings of some of the most prominent authors of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

"The Bell-Tower" appeared in 1855 in Putnam's Monthly Magazine no. 32 (August). In the south of Europe, nigh a once frescoed capital, now with dank mould cankering its bloom, central in a plain, stands what, at distance, seems the black mossed stump of some immeasurable pine, fallen, in forgotten days, with Anak and the Titan.

The Piazza published by Herman Melville in 1856. The sketch describes Melville's farmhouse, called Arrowhead, in Pittsfield, Mass. Supposedly, the other tales in the collection, including "Bartleby the Scrivener" and "Benito Cereno," were narrated on the piazza of the farmhouse.

"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story by the American writer Herman Melville, first serialized anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 issues of Putnam's Magazine.

Presented as narratives of his own South Sea experiences, Melville's first two books had roused incredulity in many readers. Their disbelief, he declared, had been "the main inducement" in altering his plan for his third book, 'Mardi: and a Voyage Thither' (1849). Melville wanted to exploit the "rich poetical material" of Polynesia and also to escape feeling "irked, cramped, & fettered" by a narrative of facts. "I began to feel ... a longing to plume my pinions for a flight," he told his English publisher.

"The Lightning-Rod Man" appeared in 1854, in Putnam's Monthly Magazine no. 20 (August). What grand irregular thunder, thought I, standing on my hearthstone among the Acroceraunian hills, as the scattered bolts boomed overhead and crashed down among the valleys, every bolt followed by zigzag irradiations, and swift slants of sharp rain, which audibly rang, like a charge of spear-points, on my low shingled roof. I suppose, though, that the mountains hereabouts break and churn up the thunder, so that it is far more glorious here than on the plain.

Benito Cereno is a novella by Herman Melville, a fictionalized account about the revolt on a Spanish slave ship captained by Don Benito Cereno, first published in three installments in Putnam's Monthly in 1855.

Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas is the second book by American writer Herman Melville, first published in London in 1847, and a sequel to his first South Sea narrative Typee, also based on the author's experiences in the South Pacific. After leaving the island of Nuku Hiva, the main character ships aboard a whaling vessel that makes its way to Tahiti, after which there is a mutiny and a third of the crew are imprisoned on Tahiti.

Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life is the first book by American writer Herman Melville, published first in London, then New York, in 1846. Considered a classic in travel and adventure literature, the narrative is partly based on the author's actual experiences on the island Nuku Hiva in the South Pacific Marquesas Islands in 1842, liberally supplemented with imaginative reconstruction and adaptation of material from other books. The title comes from the valley of Taipivai, once known as Taipi.

"The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles" is a novella by American author Herman Melville. First published in Putnam's Magazine in 1854, it consists of ten philosophical "Sketches" on the Encantadas, or Galápagos Islands. It was collected in The Piazza Tales in 1856. The Encantadas was a success with the critics, and contained some of Melville's "most memorable prose". An anonymous narrator unites the ten disparate "Sketches", each of which begin with a few lines of poetry, mostly taken from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene.

The Piazza Tales is a collection of six short stories by American writer Herman Melville, published by Dix & Edwards in the United States in May 1856 and in Britain in June. Except for the newly written title story, "The Piazza," all of the stories had appeared in Putnam's Monthly between 1853 and 1855. The collection includes what has long been regarded as three of Melville's most important achievements in the genre of short fiction, "Bartleby, the Scrivener", "Benito Cereno", and "The Encantadas", his sketches of the Galápagos Islands.

Benito Cereno ist eine Erzählung des amerikanischen Schriftstellers Herman Melville, die erstmals in drei Teilabdrucken im Oktober, November und Dezember 1855 in der Zeitschrift Putnam’s Monthly Magazine veröffentlicht und 1856 zusammen mit fünf anderen kürzeren Erzählungen in einer leicht veränderten Fassung in den Sammelband The Piazza Tales aufgenommen wurde.

"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story by the American writer Herman Melville, first serialized anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 issues of Putnam's Magazine, and reprinted with minor textual alterations in his The Piazza Tales in 1856.

When Herman Melville finished Moby Dick, he wrote a letter to his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne and said: "I have written a wicked book and feel spotless as the lamb." Unfortunately, very few people actually finish reading this 'wicked' book. One early critic said: "Melville's book can sink a ship with greater force than any whale that I know of." Moby Dick, as originally written, is just plain heavy, difficult to read from cover to cover.

L'incredibile avventura del Capitano Ahab e di "Moby Dick", la grande balena bianca, in lingua inglese! Una collana di Classici della letteratura in lingua originale, per giovani desiderosi di imparare una nuova lingua, in forma ridotta per renderli più facili. Pubblicati come audiolibri per permettere di apprendere in modo ancora più semplice la pronuncia delle parole.

Ein auf den "Reisetagebüchern" des großen Schriftstellers und Seefahrers basierendes Hörbuch, das ebenso viel über das Leben des "Moby-Dick"-Autors wie über seine Werke aussagt: Herman Melville hat drei große Reisen in seinem Leben unternommen, die ihn nach Europa, in das Heilige Land und in den vorderen Orient geführt haben und auf denen er so manch spannendes Abenteuer erlebt und die Welt kennengelernt hat.

Questo libro, pubblicato nel 1851 senza alcun successo, e riscoperto nel 1921, quando evidentemente il pubblico, maturato, poteva apprezzarlo, è considerato un capolavoro della letteratura americana, e si è talmente tanto radicato nell'inconscio collettivo che il nome di Moby Dick ha assunto ovunque il significato dell Assoluto irraggiungibile e della inevitabile sconfitta dell'orgoglio umano di fronte alle forze metafisiche.