Herman Melville

Life and work

His adventures as a seaman in 1845 inspired him to write.^[1] Typee (1846) became his first literary success, and Omoo (1847) continued his adventures.^[1] Melville wrote Mardi, a philosophical allegory, and Redburn (1849), a comedy.^[1] In 1851 he completed his masterpiece Moby-Dick, which was dismissed by his contemporaries.^[1]

During the 1850s he supported his family by farming and writing stories for magazines.^[1] The Civil War made a deep impression on Melville and became the principal subject of his verse.^[1] His first published book of poems was Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866).^[1] Following the death of his merchant father Allan, which plunged the family into poverty, Melville held a variety of jobs, including positions in banking and as a schoolteacher.^[1]

At the age of seventy-two, on September 28, 1891, Melville succumbed to a heart attack.^[1]

What the cited sources add

The poets.org account states that after his father's death Melville attempted to support his family by working various jobs from banking to teaching school.^[1] It notes that friends encouraged Melville to write about his experience when he returned from sea.^[1] The poets.org source says that Moby-Dick was considered by modern scholars to be one of the great American novels, but Melville made little from the effort.^[1] It reports that during the 1850s Melville supported his family by farming and writing stories for magazines.^[1]

The poets.org account states that the Civil War made a deep impression on Melville and became the principal subject of his verse.^[1] It records that during the week of his death the New York Times wrote that only one newspaper contained an obituary of three or four lines.^[1] The poets.org source says it was not until the 1920s that the literary public began to recognize Melville as one of America's greatest writers.^[1]