Moby-Dick, or The Whale typee a romance of the south sea

Herman Melville was born in New York City into an established merchant family. A bout of scarlet fever in 1826 left Melville with permanently weakened eyesight. from the age of 12, he worked as a clerk, teacher, and farmhand. In 1847 Melville married Elisabeth Shaw, daughter of the chief justice of Massachusetts. Moby Dick vas misunderstood by those who read and reviewed it and it sold only some 3,000 copies during Melville's lifetime. Redburn (1849) and White-clacked (1850) Melville wrote to get money, comparing his work to "sawing wood". Pierre (1852). Melville's death on September 28, 1891, in New York, was noted with only one obituary notice. His unfinished work, Billy Budd, Foretopman, remained unpublished until 1924.