A Historical Guide to Herman Melville [Paperback]

This collection gathers together original essays dealing with Melville's relations with his historical era, with class, with the marketplace, with ethnic otherness, and with religion. These essays are framed by a new, short biography by Robert Milder, an introduction by Giles Gunn, an illustrated chronology, and a bibliographical essay. Taken together, these pieces afford a fresh and searching set of perspectives on Melville's connections both with his own age and also with our own. This book makes the case, as does no other collection of criticism of its size, for Melville's commanding centrality to nineteenth-century American writing.

Introduction,Giles Gunn
Melville in His Time
1. Herman Melville, 1819-1891: A Brief Biography,Robert Milder
2. Romantic Answers, Victorian Questions: Cultural Possibilities for Melville at Mid-Century,Leon Chai
3. Melville and Class,Myra Jehlen
4. Melville and the Marketplace,Sheila Post
5. Without the Pale: Melville and Ethnic Cosmopolitanism,Timothy Marr
6. Wandering To-and-Fro : Melville and Religion,Emory Elliott
Illustrated Chronology
Bibliographical Essay,Giles Gunn

This book offers much of value. Highly recommended. --Choice

Giles Gunnis Professor of English and of Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.