Complete Shorter Fiction (Everyman's Library)

About this book

Herman Melville (1819-91) brought as much genius to the smaller-scale literary forms as he did to the full-blown novel: his poems and the short stories and novellas collected in this volume reveal a deftness and a delicacy of touch that is in some ways even more impressive than the massive tectonic passions of Moby-Dick. In a story like "Bartleby the Scrivener" -- one of the very few perfect representatives of the form in the English language -- he displayed an unflinching precision and insight and empathy in his depiction of the drastically alienated inner life of the title character. In "Benito Cereno " he addressed the great racial dilemmas of the nineteenth century with a profound almost surreal imaginative clarity. And in Billy Budd Sailor the masterpiece of his last years he fused the knowledge and craft gained from a lifetimes magnificent work into a pure stark flawlessly composed tale of innocence betrayed and destroyed. Melville is justly honored for the epic sweep of his mind but his lyricism his skill in rendering the minute the particular the local was equally sublime.