Redburn: His First Voyage

by Michael Wilson (Editor), Herman Melville

Overview

"Redburn [is] one of [Melville's] most appealing and certainly the most personal of his works. ... Redburn, the grief-stricken youth, cast among the vicious, ruined men on the ship, walking the streets of Liverpool in the late 1830s, even meeting with the homosexual hustler Harry Bolton... Nothing in Melville is more beautifully expressed than the mood of early sorrow in the forlorn passage at the opening of Redburn." -- Elizabeth Hardwick, "Melville in Love," The New York Review of Books

Watersgreen House is an independent international book publisher with editorial staff in the UK and USA. One of our aims at Watersgreen House is to showcase same-sex affection in works by important gay and bisexual authors in ways which were not possible at the time the books were originally published. We also publish nonfiction, including textbooks, as well as contemporary fiction that is literary, unusual, and provocative. watersgreen.wix.com/watersgreenhouse

Product Details

BN ID:	2940148117063
Publisher:	Watersgreen House
Publication date:	04/07/2016
Series:	The Melville Collection , #4
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	230
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Herman Melville’s reputation was immediately established in 1846 with the publication of his first novel, Typee, yet for the most part he lived in near-seclusion and died in relative obscurity for a man of his talents. He wasn’t fully appreciated until the 20th century. The conservative religious Americans of his day didn’t trust him: his unorthodoxy regarding religion, his South Seas travels, his cynicism, his bitter criticism of the hypocrisy of missionaries, and his satires of religion and religious figures made him an outcast. Today, however, some critics claim that only Dostoyevsky is his equal among 19th century writers.

At seventeen, he became a merchant seaman, sailing first to Liverpool, where the sexual activity at the docks at first shocked him but then opened up a new world for him, for he was attracted to men. At age twenty-one, he sailed to the South Pacific. Four novels came from this experience: Typee, Omoo, Mardi, and White Jacket. Another early novel, Redburn, is set primarily aboard ship. Philosophically, the strength of his early novels is his disdain for the white man trying to force civilization onto a people who were blissfully happy without it. He particularly objected to the indoctrination of religion. All of the books contain an undeniable homoeroticism.

Melville moved to the countryside to write Moby Dick. The novel is an adventure story and a tale of revenge, but it is also an audacious experiment. The reaction from critics was so harsh that from the publication of Moby Dick in 1851 until about 1938, Melville was not afforded much respect among scholars.

In 1852, Melville published Pierre, which is autobiographical in its anatomy of the despair Melville was feeling at the rejection of Moby Dick. Pierre was scandalous for its day, almost as if Melville were thumbing his nose at society. Melville was now only thirty-two but considered a failed writer. His next story was refused for publication, so he retired and lived in relative obscurity for the remainder of his days. When he died, however, he left Billy Budd, which some critics think the equal of Moby Dick.

Editorial Reviews

The great charm of the work is its realness. ... [T]he tale is told simply and without the least pretension; and yet, within its narrow bounds, are flashes of genuine humor, strokes of pure pathos, and real and original characters.

Boston Post - Charles Gordon Green

Ships, the sea, and those that plough it, with their belongings on shore -- these subjects are identified with Herman Melville's name; for he has most unquestionably made them his own. No writer, not even Marryat himself, has observed them more closely, or pictured them more impressively. Indeed, in one respect, Melville, to our thinking, has shown more talent than many of his predecessors in telling tales of the sea.

New York Albion - William Young

We see no reason why [Redburn] should not be one of the most popular of all the books relating to the romance of the sea. The fact that it narrates the adventures of a "green hand," will make it invaluable to a large class of youthful sailors. The style sparkles with wit and fancy, but its great merit is a rapidity of movement, which bears the reader along, almost by main force from the commencement to the conclusion of the volume.

Philadelphia Graham's Magazine - Philadelphia Graham's

"Redburn [is] one of [Melville's] most appealing and certainly the most personal of his works. ... For a contemporary reader, Redburn, the grief-stricken youth, cast among the vicious, ruined men on the ship, walking the streets of Liverpool in the late 1830s, even meeting with the homosexual hustler Harry Bolton might have more interest... Nothing in Melville is more beautifully expressed than the mood of early sorrow in the forlorn passage at the opening of Redburn."

The New York Review of Books - Elizabeth Hardwick