Herman Melville

Biography Born in NYC on August 1, 1819 to a somewhat poor family and had a father that was a “slow” man. He was one of eight children. When his father died in 1832, the family moved to Lansingbrough which is a small neighborhood with New York where Herman and his brother were forced to work to provide for the family. Looking for work, he became a cabin boy on a ship going to Liverpool where he got the idea for a book known as Redburn: The first voyage. He wrote the book, Moby Dick, which was a story about whaler’s romance during an 18-month cruise. On August 4 th, 1847, Herman married Elizabeth Shaw and had 4 children and the oldest of which commited suicide at age 19. The death of his son really hurt Herman. Herman soon became ill and died on September 28, 1891 at the age of 72.

 Melville’s most known work was originally entitled “The Whale”, but we all know the book as “Moby Dick”.  Was published on October 18, 1851 in England; the first American version was published on November 14,  Book did not receive good reviews, and sold very poorly.  A lot of people criticized him for not including the epilogue in the final copy because they thought he should have provided a little more background information.  Melville’s first published book was entitled “Typee” made him famous in England.  Melville first tried to publish it in America, but was rejected because they thought it was “too fantastic to be true”.  Was later published in America after they made him revise it to make it seem more realistic (even though later, they found out that it was based on a true story).

Herman Melville: born in New York city in Melville’s father died when he was only 12.

Interesting Facts 3 rd of 8 children. His grandfather was in the Boston Tea Party. Moby Dick only sold 3,000 copies during Melville’s lifetime. In 1826 Melville got scarlet fever, and it left him with permanently damaged eyesight

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