Product Description

Melville's short stories are masterpieces. The best are to be appreciated on more than one level and those presented here are rich with symbolism and spiritual depth. Set in 1797, "Billy Budd", Foretopman exploits the tension of this period during the war between England and France to create a tale of satanic treachery, tragedy and great pathos that explores human relationships and the inherently ambiguous nature of man-made justice. Tales such as "Bartleby", "Benito Cereno", "The Lightning Rod Man", "The Tartarus of Maids or I" and "My Chimney", show the timeless poetic power of Melville's writing as he consciously uses the disguise of allegory in various ways and to various ends.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71786 in Books
• Published on: 1998-10-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

You can hear the crashing of the waves...
...with every turn of the page! I took this out of the University library one rainy afternoon early last year and couldn’t put it down. As anyone who has read Melville’s most famous work Moby Dick will know all too well, his writing is some of the most atmospheric there is; weaving gloriously detailed descriptions with deeply allegorical structures to deliver us a work that transports us head-first into the world of his stories. I’m not saying this isn’t a slight work, when evaluated in the shadowy wake of the aforementioned whale tale, but the central concept of various tales of the sea all collected in one slim, though delightful little book is simply great. It’s been a long-cherished dream of mine to write a novel of transcribed sea shanties, and this acts as a pretty good blueprint. The concept is so evocative... it lends itself to stunning scenarios, larger than life characters, and grand battle sequences that conjure images in your mind that not even the producers of the Pirates of the Caribbean could have created. It isn’t as stirring or legendary in its use of narrative storytelling of say, Treasure Island, though the stories are good enough to keep you occupied for a couple of days... plus, it does act as a fairly adequate primer for other such tales of the sea.