White-Jacket: Or, the World in a Man-Of-War (The Writings of Herman Melville: The Northwestern-Newberry Edition, V. 5) - Hardcover

Herman Melville

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Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0810102579 ISBN 13: 9780810102576

Publisher: Northwestern University Press, 1970

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Herman Melville wrote White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War during two months of intense work in the summer of 1849. He drew upon his memories of naval life, having spent fourteen months as an ordinary seaman aboard a frigate as it sailed the Pacific and made the homeward voyage around Cape Horn.

Already that same summer Melville had written Redburn, and he regarded the books as "two jobs, which I have done for money--being forced to it, as other men are to sawing wood." The reviewers were not as hard on White-Jacket as Melville himself was. The English liked its praise of British seamen. The Americans were more interested in Melville's attack on naval abuses, particularly flogging, and his advocacy of humanitarian causes. Soon Melville was acclaimed the best sea writer of the day.

Part autobiography, part epic fiction, White-Jacket remains a brilliantly imaginative social novel by one of the great writers of the sea. This text of the novel is an Approved Text of the Center for Editions of American Authors (Modern Language Association of America).

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From the Inside Flap:

lle’s most popular novels during his lifetime―and the subject of renewed interest in recent decades―White-Jacket is both a brisk sea adventure and a powerful social critique. Based on Melville’s own experiences, it explores the fascinating and often harrowing world of a naval fighting ship, the Neversink. The ship becomes for Melville a microcosm of America itself; its hierarchy, social divisions, and cruel practices suggest larger injustices, including slavery.

This Modern Library Paperback Classic reproduces the definitive Northwestern-Newberry Edition.

From the Back Cover:

The aim of this edition of 'White-Jacket, ' the fifth volume in the Northwestern-Newberry Edition of 'The Writings of Herman Melville, ' is to present a text as close to the author's intention as surviving evidence permits.

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