By the time the author died, he had been almost completely forgotten, then his 1851 masterpiece “Moby Dick” was relaunched in 1921 thanks to a biography of Raymond Weaver; today the novel is considered one of the greatest masterpieces of the nineteenth century. Its author is Herman melville, American writer, poet and literary critic, born on August 1, 1819 in New York.
Melville He studied in New York and matured his passion for adventure by listening to the stories told to him by his father Allan, a wealthy expansive merchant who had traveled extensively in the past. In his father’s stories, figures such as gigantic waves and broken masts scattered like small branches in the sea were often present. After a life spent in economic tranquility, in the summer of 1830, his father’s business failed: Allan Melville manifested shortly after a psychiatric illness that led to his death. The brother tried to take over his father’s business, but was unsuccessful: the family that consisted of eight children, (Herman was the third), was suddenly in poverty and moved to the town of Lansingburgh, on the river Hudson.
Back at home, he resumed the teaching profession. At the beginning of 1841 he enlisted again as a sailor: he departed from the port of New Bedford (Massachusetts) on the whaling ship Acushnet, which was heading towards the Pacific Ocean. The trip lasted a year and a half. Once he reached the Marquesas Islands (French Polynesia), Melville defected; the novel of “Taipi“(Typee) as its continuation”Omoo“They witnessed this story.
After a stay in the Society Islands, Melville He moved to Honolulu, where he stayed for four months working as a clerk in an office. He then joined the crew of the American frigate “United States”, sailing to Boston, stopping in a Peruvian port in October 1844. He described this experience in “White Jacket or the world seen on a warship“(1850).
On August 4, 1847 in Boston, Herman melville he married Elizabeth Shaw, they settled in New York, where they remained until 1850, when they bought a farm in Pittsfield (Massachusetts); just in February of the same year he began to write “Moby dick“, the work that projected him in the history of North American and world literature.
During the thirteen years he stayed in Pittsfield, Melville he dedicated himself to lecturing in schools, mainly on the subject of his adventures in the South Seas.
However, his works were not able to reach a mass audience, so Melville he didn’t make a lot of money from them. Economically he owed a lot of money to his wife’s family; later he also worked as a customs officer in New York, where he would move in with his wife.
After an illness that lasted for several months, Herman melville He died at his home in New York in the early hours of the morning of September 28, 1891. His body was interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.