Great Short Works of Herman Melville

Billy Budd, Sailor and Bartleby, the Scrivener are two of the most revered shorter works of fiction in history. Here, they are collected along with 19 other stories in a beautifully redesigned collection that represents the best short work of an American master.As Warner Berthoff writes in his introduction to this volume, "It is hard to think of a major novelist or storyteller who is not also a first-rate entertainer ... a master, according to choice, of high comedy, of one or another robust species of expressive humour, or of some special variety of the preposterous, the grotesque, the absurd. And Melville, certainly, is no exception. A kind of vigorous supervisory humour is his natural idiom as a writer, and one particular attraction of his shorter work is the fresh further display it offers of this prime element in his literary character."

About the author

Herman Melville (1819–1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet who received wide acclaim for his earliest novels, such as Typee and Redburn, but fell into relative obscurity by the end of his life. Today, Melville is hailed as one of the definitive masters of world literature for novels including Moby Dick and Billy Budd, as well as for enduringly popular short stories such as Bartleby, the Scrivener and The Bell-Tower.

Product details

• Authors: Herman Melville
• Assisted by: Warner Berthoff (Editor)
• Publisher: Harper Perennial USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 02.03.2004
• EAN: 9780060586546
• ISBN: 978-0-06-058654-6
• No. of pages: 512
• Dimensions: 135 mm x 205 mm x 22 mm
• Series: Perennial Classics; Perennial Classics
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Russia, United States of America, USA, Literary essays, Anthologies: general, USSR, Soviet Union, FICTION: Literary, FICTION: Media Tie-In, LITERARY COLLECTIONS: Essays, LITERARY COLLECTIONS: American / General, FICTION: Classics, RELIGION: THEOLOGY, FICTION: Animals, HARPER PERENNIAL CLASSICS: LITERARY COLLECTIONS, RELIGION: Essays, LITERARY COLLECTIONS: Russian & Former Soviet Union, Classic fiction: general and literary, Harper Perennial Classics / Literary Collections