Herman Melville

Melville, Herman (1819–91), U.S. writer. His reputation rests mainly on the masterpiece Moby-Dick (1851), and the short novel Billy Budd, Foretopman, published posthumously (1924). Melville's whaling and other voyages provided material for several of his earlier, popular books. Typee (1846), his first, was based on his adventures and capture by cannibals after jumping ship in the Marquesas islands. Moby-Dick, a deeply symbolic work, combines allegory with adventure. Too profound and complex for its audience, this great novel was not successful; subsequent books did not recapture Melville's former popularity. Only in the 1930s did his talent receive full recognition.