Billy Budd and Other Tales (A Signet Classic)
by Herman Melville (Author); Willard Thorp (Afterword by)
- Used
- Paperback
- first
- Condition
- Used-Acceptable
- Seller
-
The Bronx, New York, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Synopsis
Herman Melville was born in August 1, 1819, in New York City, the son of a merchant. Only twelve when his father died bankrupt, young Herman tried work as a bank clerk, as a cabin-boy on a trip to Liverpool, and as an elementary schoolteacher, before shipping in January 1841 on the whaler Acushnet, bound for the Pacific. Deserting ship the following year in the Marquesas, he made his way to Tahiti and Honolulu, returning as ordinary seaman on the frigate United States to Boston, where he was discharged in October 1844. Books based on these adventures won him immediate success. By 1850 he was married, had acquired a farm near Pittsfield, Massachussetts (where he was the impetuous friend and neighbor of Nathaniel Hawthorne), and was hard at work on his masterpiece Moby-Dick. Literary success soon faded; his complexity increasingly alienated readers. After a visit to the Holy Land in January 1857, he turned from writing prose fiction to poetry. In 1863, during the Civil War, he moved back to New York City, where from 1866-1885 he was a deputy inspector in the Custom House, and where, in 1891, he died. A draft of a final prose work, Billy Budd, Sailor , was left unfinished and uncollated, packed tidily away by his widow, where it remained until its rediscovery and publication in 1924.
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Details
- Bookseller
- gearbooks (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 3iiiGd0001
- Title
- Billy Budd and Other Tales (A Signet Classic)
- Author
- Herman Melville (Author); Willard Thorp (Afterword by)
- Format/Binding
- Mass Market Paperback
- Book Condition
- Used-Acceptable
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- 1st Printing: October 1961
- Binding
- Paperback
- Publisher
- A Signet Classic/Signet Books/Published by The New American Library
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1961
- Keywords
- Non-Fiction, Essays, Short Stories, Letters, American Literature & Studies, Americana, Intl. & World Famous Literature, Herman Melville, Classic American Literature, Fictional Novel, Literary Fiction & Novel, Classic Fiction & Novel, Liter
- Size
- 12mo or 12° (Duodecimo): 6¾" x 7¾" tall
Terms of Sale
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About the Seller
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Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Acceptable
- A non-traditional book condition description that generally refers to a book in readable condition, although no standard exists...
- Inscribed
- When a book is described as being inscribed, it indicates that a short note written by the author or a previous owner has been...
- 12mo
- A duodecimo is a book approximately 7 by 4.5 inches in size, or similar in size to a contemporary mass market paperback. Also...
- Mass Market
- Mass market paperback books, or MMPBs, are printed for large audiences cheaply. This means that they are smaller, usually 4...