Melville in Love: The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-dick

by Michael Shelden Narrated by Sean Pratt

Overview

Herman Melville's epic novel, Moby-Dick, was a spectacular failure when it was published in 1851, effectively ending its author's rise to literary fame. Because he was neglected by academics for so long, and because he made little effort to preserve his legacy, we know very little about Melville, and even less about what he called his "wicked book." Scholars still puzzle over what drove Melville to invent Captain Ahab's mad pursuit of the great white whale.



In Melville in Love Michael Shelden sheds light on this literary mystery to tell a story of Melville's passionate and clandestine affair with a married woman named Sarah Morewood, whose libertine impulses encouraged and sustained Melville's own. In his research, Shelden discovered documents suggesting that, in their shared resistance to the "iron rule" of social conformity, Sarah and Melville had forged an illicit and enduring romantic and intellectual bond. Emboldened by the thrill of courting Sarah in secret, the pleasure of falling in love, and the excitement of spending time with literary luminaries, Melville found the courage to take the leap from light works of adventure to the hugely brilliant, utterly subversive Moby-Dick.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

04/04/2016
Shelden (Pulitzer finalist for Orwell: The Authorized Biography) theorizes, skillfully but unconvincingly, that Herman Melville had an affair with his next-door neighbor, Sarah Morewood, in Pittsfield, Mass. Morewood, who like Melville was married, was well known for her wit and beauty. Focusing on the years from 1850 to 1852, Shelden posits her as Melville’s great love, and describes their relationship as a guiding force in the creation of Moby-Dick and even a factor in its tepid original reception from critics. Written with novelistic period detail and peopled with convincingly reanimated historical characters, this short book nonetheless feels overextended. The middle portion departs from the central relationship as Morewood goes off to England and Melville hunkers down to finish Moby-Dick, published in 1851. Shelden uses this interlude to explore painter J.M.W. Turner‘s influence on Moby-Dick and Melville’s friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne. Although Shelden claims to have found a “long trail of clues” about Melville and Morewood’s connection, his argument relies too heavily on inference, interpretation, and literary exegesis. A costume party, a Christmas dinner laurel ceremony, and a scandalous mixed-sex camping excursion are all scoured for any telling details. The book is an engaging and creative recreation, but the accuracy of Shelden’s conclusions remains suspect. (June)

Eve LaPlante

It took the world decades to recognize Melvillle as a great writer. Thanks to Michael Shelden, we finally know Melville as a husband, father, son, friend, and lover. A brilliant and heart-breaking story.

Starred Review Booklist

Riveting in its incandescent sense of discovery, intimacy, and velocity, Shelden’s bound-to-be-controversial anatomy of a clandestine love transforms our perception of Melville and introduces “one of the great unsung figures in literary history.

Kenyon Review

Melville in Love is another masterwork by Shelden in the field of biography. Coupling diligent forensic scholarship with melodious narrative prose, he has discovered something new about an American author for whom the study of his life has turned into a minor industry of its own.

Valerie Hemingway

Michael Shelden, with his skills as meticulous researcher, literary sleuth and inveterate storyteller surprises with a spellbinding, romantic tale of Melville and the Muse who aroused his passion and inspired his genius.

New York Journal of Books

A masterpiece. . . . He visually escorts the reader into the mindset and emotional life of one of the most renowned literary giants. Without a doubt this biography is capable of captivating generations of readers and writers[and] inspir[ing] them to pursue their own creative endeavors.

Sena Jeter Naslund

Michael Shelden delivers the goods. . . . Now we can understand better the daring and the originality, the stylistic and thematic boldness of Moby-Dick: its writing was fueled and sustained by Melville’s passionate connection to a congenial sensibility.

Bookreporter

Outstanding.

Shelley Fisher Fishkin

Melville in Love is a masterful, riveting piece of literary and biographical detective work. Astute, compelling, and beautifully written, it gives us fascinating new insight into one of America’s greatest writers and the alchemy of his enduring art.

Bruce Cole

Engrossing, original, fast paced, and beautifully written, this is a book that deserves a place on the shelves of anyone interested in Melville and the art of literature.

BookPage

MELVILLE IN LOVE is a beautifully written, captivating story that may also be one of the most surprising literary revelations of our time.

Elle

A mesmerizing portrait… The hitherto hidden tale of these unconventional lovers is a deep and revelatory pleasure.

The Washington Post

A proto-feminist woman of letters, impresario and poet in her own right, Morewood strikes us in Shelden’s account as a person of imagination and courage straining against the socially imposed constrictions of her time.

Library Journal

05/01/2016
What a scandalous surprise author Shelden's (Orwell: The Authorized Biography) biography will be for anyone who thinks of Herman Melville as just a stately old man with a bushy beard. Using newly discovered archival materials, Shelden relates the adulterous love affair between Melville and Sarah Morewood. He suggests both Moby-Dick and Pierre were heavily influenced by the 19th-century novelist's relationship with Morewood. The courtship was suspected by most and acknowledged by none. Both Melville and Morewood were married during their long-term affair that produced two children and sunk Melville deep into debt in order to be near his mistress. Morewood's early death from consumption sent Melville into a spiral of grief and depression that came close to ruining his family. Shelden carefully and convincingly presents his evidence regarding Morewood's influence and how she inspired Melville to a greatness recognized by few of his peers. The boldness of the lovers is shocking as are the repercussions. Endnotes and a thorough bibliography support Shelden's research and offer further avenues of exploration. VERDICT Written for a general audience, this well-paced, enjoyable read is a must for Melville fans.—Stefanie Hollmichel, Univ. of St. Thomas Law Lib., Minneapolis

Kirkus Reviews

2016-03-16
How a secret love affair inflamed Herman Melville's fiction. Biographer Shelden (Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill, 2013, etc.) claims that Melville's novels, including Moby-Dick, were inspired by his love for Sarah Anne Morewood, his attractive, young, married neighbor. This passionate relationship, he argues, stands as "the powerful key to unlocking his secrets," although nearly every other Melville biographer has ignored it. Melville and Morewood met in 1850, when both were summering in the Berkshires, where she had bought property. Soon after, Melville borrowed money from his father-in-law to acquire a tract of land adjacent to the Morewoods' and moved his family from New York. There, "in the grip of his own obsession," he wrote feverishly about an obsessed captain's hunt for an elusive whale. The novel, Shelden argues, "is the result of the author's own extended dive into the depths of his life." Morewood, pretty, restless, and flirtatious, sounds like a version of Madame Bovary. Leaving her boring husband to his business, she loved hiking, parties, and champagne. The famed physician Oliver Wendell Holmes, also an admirer of hers, observed her effect on Melville. Holmes' novel Elsie Venner, "a tale of characters searching for love and willing to do anything for it," offered a "revealing glimpse into Melville's secret life." Shelden argues that Melville himself exposed the affair in Pierre, about "an idealistic youth whose life is forever changed by his romance with a dark, mysterious beauty" who claims to be his secret half sister and lures him away from his "uncomplicated" girlfriend, just as Morewood lured Melville away from his wife. The emotionally fraught novel, with its inexplicable theme of incest, proved too much for readers and ended Melville's trajectory to fame. Shelden bases his conclusions on correspondence and archival research but often conjectures about what "must have" occurred. Nonetheless, he offers a provocative portrait of the canonical writer and his world.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170442492
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	06/15/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged

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