Shelden Mark (3 results)

Soft cover. Condition: Fine. No Jacket. Special Edition. Package of 4 Melville paperback ARCs sold together + Jay Parini poem. [Presented this day, November 14, 2023, the 172nd anniversary of the U.S. publication of MOBY-DICK.] All bright, clean & tight, unread in FINE condition. "THE PASSAGES OF H. M. is a stirring novel of the adventurous life and tragic literary career of Herman Melville. As it opens, we see an aging, angry, and drunken Melville wreaking domestic havoc in his unhappy New York home. His epic but ungainly novel Moby-Dick was meant to make him immortal, but critics scoffed and readers fled. His days are spent trudging the docks of New York as a customs inspector and contemplating his literary fate." [] MELVILLE IN LOVE: The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick, by Michael Shelden, a speculative 2016 biography. "Shelden sheds light on this literary mystery to tell a story of Melville's passionate, obsessive, and clandestine affair with a married woman named Sarah Morewood, whose libertine impulses encouraged and sustained Melville's own. In his research, Shelden discovered unexplored documents suggesting that, in their shared resistance to the 'iron rule' of social conformity, Sarah and Melville had forged an illicit and enduring romantic and intellectual bond." [] THE WHALE: A Love Story, a 2016 novel by Mark Beauregard. "In the summer of 1850, Herman Melville finds himself hounded by creditors and afraid his writing career might be coming to an end--his last three novels have been commercial failures and the critics have turned against him. In despair, Melville takes his family for a vacation to his cousin's farm in the Berkshires, where he meets Nathaniel Hawthorne at a picnic--and his life turns upside down. An exuberant tale of longing and passion, THE WHALE captures not only a transformative relationship--long the subject of speculation--between two of our most enduring authors, but also their exhilarating moment in history, when a community of ambitious writers was creating truly American literature for the first time." [] WHY READ MOBY-DICK? by Nathaniel Philbrick, a handy little study from 2011. "Moby-Dick is perhaps the greatest of the Great American Novels, yet its length and esoteric subject matter create an aura of difficulty that too often keeps readers at bay. Fortunately, one unabashed fan wants passionately to give Melville's masterpiece the broad contemporary audience it deserves. Philbrick skillfully navigates Melville's world and illuminates the book's humor and unforgettable characters--finding the thread that binds Ishmael and Ahab to our own time and, indeed, to all times. This remarkable little book will start conversations, inspire arguments, and, best of all, bring a new wave of readers to a classic tale waiting to be discovered anew." [publishers' ARC copy] + I include gratis a signed Jay Parini poem, "Over the River"--a 2015 broadside from interrobang letterpress. All materials in unread Fine condition, w/sharp corners & crisp edges, square & tight bindings w/no creases in spines & no jackets as issued. Quite a presentable deal.

Hard Cover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. First Edition. 1. Publisher's full green cloth board, black spine with silver lettering. Illustrations at beginning of each chapter. . The volume is in perfect, pristine condition, unmarked, tight, square and clean. Dust jacket has one minimal tear at top of spine. FINE/FINE. . B&W Illustrations. 8vo 8" - 9" tall. xxxviiii), 484 pp.

paperback. Condition: New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title!