Herman Melville – författare

I samma stund som Ismael hör kapten Ahab berätta om valen som tog hans ben inser han att Ahabs hämndlystna jakt på något sätt också är hans egen. I vad som ofta kallats den största amerikanska romanen får vi följa besättningen på skeppet Pequod i deras sökande efter den mytomspunna vita valen Moby Dick. Det blir ett sökande som driver dem till gränsen för vad den mänskliga viljan och besattheten är kapabel till, och ställer dem öga mot öga med naturens obeveklighet. D. H. Lawrence kallade romanen »en av världens märkligaste och mest underbara böcker«, William Faulkner önskade att han själv skrivit den, och Bob Dylan har lyft fram den som en av sina viktigaste inspirationskällor. Moby Dick publicerades 1851 och räknas som en av litteraturhistoriens stora romaner. Här i översättning av Hugo Hultenberg.

HERMAN MELVILLE [1819-1891], född i New York, var en amerikansk författare och poet. Som tjugoåring tog han anställning som sjöman på ett handelsfartyg med vilket han seglade till Franska Polynesien, där han mönstrade av. Hans erfarenheter till sjöss kom sedan att ligga till grund för flera av hans böcker, inte minst mästerverket Moby Dick. I dag betraktas Melville som en av de största amerikanska författarna.

Billy Budd, Sailor and Bartleby, the Scrivener are two of the most revered shorter works of fiction in history. Here, they are collected along with 19 other stories in a beautifully redesigned collection that represents the best short work of an American master.As Warner Berthoff writes in his introduction to this volume, "It is hard to think of a major novelist or storyteller who is not also a first-rate entertainer . . . a master, according to choice, of high comedy, of one or another robust species of expressive humour, or of some special variety of the preposterous, the grotesque, the absurd. And Melville, certainly, is no exception. A kind of vigorous supervisory humour is his natural idiom as a writer, and one particular attraction of his shorter work is the fresh further display it offers of this prime element in his literary character."

"Melville at his best invariably wrote from a sort of dream self, so that events which he relates as actual fact have indeed a far deeper reference to his own soul, his own inner life." - D.H. Lawrence.

Here are ten stories that represent some of the best short work of American master Herman Melville, including "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street," "The Happy Failure," and "The Paradise of Bachelors and The Tartarus of Maids."

Alongside THE HAPPY FAILURE, Harper Perennial will publish the short fiction of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Willa Cather, Stephen Crane, and Oscar Wilde to be packaged in a beautifully designed, boldly colorful boxset in the aim to attract contemporary fans of short fiction to these revered masters of the form. Also, in each of these selections will appear a story from one of the new collections being published in the "Summer of the Short Story." A story from Alex Burrett''s forthcoming collection, MY GOAT ATE ITS OWN LEGS, will be printed at the back of this volume.

Herman Melville was an 18th century American novelist, poet, essayist and short story writer. He is best known for his works Moby Dick and Typee. During his lifetime he was considered a failure, but after his death his worth as a writer was recognized. Bartleby is a novella, which first appeared in Putnam''s Magazine. The narrator is an elderly lawyer who helps his clients with mortgages, titles and bonds. The lawyer''s office has two employees Nippers and Turkey. Turkey is a drunk and Nippers has indigestion. The office is able to function because Nippers indigestion is at a time when Turkey is sober and Turkey is hung over when Nippers is feeling better. Bartleby is hired in the hopes that his temperament will calm down the office. As the story progresses Melville brings a sense of the human condition as seen through the eyes of a lowly employee.

A short story from the Classic Shorts collection: The Happy Failure by Herman Melville

"Melville at his best invariably wrote from a sort of dream self, so that events which he relates as actual fact have indeed a far deeper reference to his own soul, his own inner life." - D.H. Lawrence.

Here are ten stories that represent some of the best short work of American master Herman Melville, including "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street," "The Happy Failure," and "The Paradise of Bachelors and The Tartarus of Maids."

Alongside THE HAPPY FAILURE, Harper Perennial will publish the short fiction of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Willa Cather, Stephen Crane, and Oscar Wilde to be packaged in a beautifully designed, boldly colorful boxset in the aim to attract contemporary fans of short fiction to these revered masters of the form. Also, in each of these selections will appear a story from one of the new collections being published in the "Summer of the Short Story." A story from Alex Burrett''s forthcoming collection, MY GOAT ATE ITS OWN LEGS, will be printed at the back of this volume.

"Melville at his best invariably wrote from a sort of dream self, so that events which he relates as actual fact have indeed a far deeper reference to his own soul, his own inner life." - D.H. Lawrence.

Here are ten stories that represent some of the best short work of American master Herman Melville, including "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street," "The Happy Failure," and "The Paradise of Bachelors and The Tartarus of Maids."

Alongside THE HAPPY FAILURE, Harper Perennial will publish the short fiction of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Willa Cather, Stephen Crane, and Oscar Wilde to be packaged in a beautifully designed, boldly colorful boxset in the aim to attract contemporary fans of short fiction to these revered masters of the form. Also, in each of these selections will appear a story from one of the new collections being published in the "Summer of the Short Story." A story from Alex Burrett''s forthcoming collection, MY GOAT ATE ITS OWN LEGS, will be printed at the back of this volume.