Herman Melville, Mariner and Mystic (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Gaudens, Homer Saint

Softcover

ISBN 10: 144005763X ISBN 13: 9781440057632

Publisher: Forgotten Books, 2012

Synopsis

Hawthorne, wrote Melville in the summer of 1851, we shall sit down in Paradise in some little shady corner by ourselves; and if we shall by any means be able to smuggle a basket of champagne there (I wont believe in a Temperance Heaven); and if we shall then cross our celestial legs in the celestial grass that is forever tropical, and strike our glasses and our heads together till both ring musically in concert: then, Omy dear fellow mortal, how shall we pleasantly discourse of all the things manifold which now so much distress us. This serene and laughing desolation a mood which in Melville alternated with a deepening and less tranquil despair is a spectacle to inspire with sardonic optimism those who gloat over the vanity of human wishes. For though at that time Melville was only thirty-two years old, he had crowded into that brief space of life a scope of experience to rival Ulysses ,and a literary achievement of a magnitude and variety to merit all but the highest fame. Still did he luxuriate in tribulation. Well-born, and nurtured in good manners and a cosmopolitan tradition, he was, like George Borrow, and Sir Richard Burton, a gentleman adventurer in the barbarous outposts of human experience. Nor was his a kid-gloved and expensively staged dip into studio savagery. For my part, I abominate all honourable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever, he declared. And as proof of this abomination he went forth penniless as a common sailor to view the watery world.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.

Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has b

About this edition

• Publisher: Forgotten Books
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 144005763X
• ISBN 13: 9781440057632
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 434