Herman Melville

American · 1819–1891

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet whose work was largely neglected during his lifetime. He is best known for Moby-Dick (1851), an encyclopedic novel about the obsessive hunt for a white whale, widely considered one of the great works of American literature. Drawing on his own years as a young sailor on whalers and merchant ships, Melville fused adventure narrative with metaphysical speculation, biblical allusion, and cetological digression. Like John Williams's Stoner, Moby-Dick sold poorly on first publication and only achieved canonical status posthumously.

Wikipedia