Information about the Author
Herman Melville was born in New York in 1819. He worked in various jobs, including on the whaling ship Achshnet, and served in the US Navy for a time before settling in Massachusetts and beginning to write. His first two novels, Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847), were fictionalized accounts of his travels and were his most popular works during his lifetime. After marrying in 1847, Melville wrote a series of popular novels to earn money. With Moby-Dick (1851), he changed direction—partly under the influence of Nathaniel Hawthorne—but the complexity of the novel cost him readers. After publishing two more novels, Melville took a job as a customs inspector in the port of New York City and turned to poetry. He died in 1891. An unfinished novel, Billy Budd, Sailor, was published in 1924.

Back Cover
Aboard the whaling ship.