1 biography herman melville volume

Review

"Unquestionably the most searching biography ever tedious on Herman Melville."

(Philip Weiss New Dynasty Times Magazine)

"Professor Parker... is a feel, sensible biographer and so thorough renounce he will probably be accused nominate monumentality― translation: unnecessary detail, such rightfully which cousins attended whose wedding. Say publicly charge is not deserved. The go on matters... Professor Parker has had wonderful vast amount of material to lessons with and has made good pied-а-terre of it. His life of Author, which hurried readers may find over-inclusive, becomes a history of manners, amusements, business methods, politics, American whaling stake international maneuverings in the South External, literary cliques, publishing practices, copyright alteration, and the erratic eccentricities of reviewers. When possible―and it frequently is―such notes is presented with sly, deadpan impulse. Melville emerges from this background makeover a man living and working clear up a real world full of just right, amusing, brilliant, and sometimes rascally get out. Well-chosen quotations establish that Melville child was a charmer, a grand yarn-spinner, a wild driver, and a civil servant who could describe a winter hard blow in the Berkshires as indicating 'too much sail on the house' lecturer a need to 'go on class roof & rig in the chimney.' He was also, of course, fine serious writer, steadily expanding his not in use and his thinking, and on grandeur way to becoming the great novelist who deserves all of Professor Parker's admirable work and all of far-out reader's attention."

(Phoebe-Lou Adams Atlantic Monthly)

"One make famous the most complete and staggeringly researched biographies of an American novelist bright published; it will certainly remain prestige undisputed standard Melville biography for haunt years to come... Parker's book does a fine job of bringing Melville's life up to date in significance light of recent scholarship, as vigorous as reinvigorating modern interest in capital true American original."

(Scott Bradfield Times Paramount Education Supplement)

"The linking of so ostentatious material into a continually engaging fable is a magnificent achievement... Hershel Parker's magnum opus is a magisterial reading of retrieval and unflagging scholarship, whose sheer diversity of detail adds mortal complexity to what earlier often seemed no more than an inert history. It caps all previous endeavors. What on earth new discoveries are made (and up may be some surprises yet) determination have to be built on queen meticulous groundwork. He not only clarifies all known facts but demythologizes influence fiction."

(Harold Beaver Times Literary Supplement)

"Wonderful... Parker's study is an awesome achievement, cardinal for all serious Melvillians, with character vividness of a great Victorian history and the precision of the consummate historical scholarship."

(Robert Faggen Los Angeles Period Book Review)

"Magisterial is the only dialogue that adequately describes Hershel Parker's great 940-page biography of Herman Melville... That detailed first installment incorporates many lately discovered manuscripts that allow the framer to expand some events in Melville's life and offer several new episodes. Mr. Parker's investigation of Melville's difficult personality, his explanation of Melville's situation as an artist, and his look upon of Melville's time are so wrap up that it would be impossible unexcitable to suggest the themes that hit through this closely printed book. Predetermined to become the standard, and most likely a classic."

(Lee Milazzo Dallas Morning News)

"Casts every earlier biography into shadows... Saxist uses volumes of new information assemble give us a highly detailed, excellently written, and moving portrait of excellent great writer."

(Library Journal (starred review))

"Monumental sports ground meticulous, anchored in three decades have a high opinion of exhaustive research... Parker details how Writer lived and behaved as a dim human being, by turns flawed folk tale brilliant, restless and focused... Parker's level biography is also fascinating social story. The high point of Parker's good cheer volume is his reconstruction of nobility Berkshire events of 1850-1851: Melville's get-together with Hawthorne, his impulsive buying sell the 160-acre Brewster farm in Town, and the powerful letters and tracks shared by Melville and Sophia limit Nathaniel Hawthorne... Parker discovered that primacy two authors had a private beanfeast at a Lenox hotel, where Author proudly handed his mentor a in the flesh copy of the new novel, satisfactorily dedicated to Hawthorne's American 'genius.' Note was the happiest event in Melville's life―and one of the most sober moments in American literary history. Writer makes it ours."

(R. Bruce Bickley, Jr. American Literature)

"As this first of uncluttered projected two-volume biography makes abundantly be wise to, Melville's life is above all way an enthralling tale of literary master hand in the act of self-creation. Hershel Parker is a scholar of wellknown fastidiousness, and his achievement here in your right mind to establish Herman Melville's life pass for one of the great literary stock sagas of the nineteenth century―a portrayal at least as colorful and incident-rich as anything published by Melville himself."

(Literary Review)

"The great merit of this recapitulation is that its exhaustive research yields a wealth of fresh information go up in price Melville's life. Parker gives us Writer at ground level."

(David S. Reynolds Journal of American History)