Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Classics Challenge: Herman Melville

"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men." ~Herman Melville

Alas! Herman Melville is our last author in my Classics Challenge. He is also one of the few American authors I've read.

Melville was born in New York City in 1819. This famous author's love for writing budded in his early childhood, taking the form of short stories and poetry. After his father's death and due to financial hardships, Melville eventually took a job as a cabin boy on the whaling ship Acushnet.

The subsequent years of Melville's life were filled with one adventure after another: deserting the Acushnet with a crewmember, being captured by cannibals (but not eaten) for four months, escaping the cannibals by boarding another whaling ship only to be imprisoned soon afterward for taking part in a mutiny... Melville finally wound up in Hawaii, hopping a ride home to Massachusetts where he hurried to pen his adventures.

His first novel was Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life. From there his writing career grew. He married and continued writing. Though Moby Dick is considered Melville's best work today, it wasn't the case while he was alive. Critics were unimpressed and sales were dismal.
Melville died of a heart attack in 1891 at the age of seventy-two.


Writerly Things to Learn from Herman Melville

1. There's no greater source of inspiration than a writer's life. Melville's adventures shaped the fictional adventures in his books and have made them the classics they are today.

2. Success is relative. Unfortunately, Melville wasn't dubbed a "Great American Author" until after his death. It's important to remember that the accomplishment in writing is a personal victory: you finished a book! It doesn't matter what society thinks.

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