Moby Dick /Billy Budd

For twenty years before his death in 1891, Herman Melville was a forgotten man. This is best reflected in a couple obituary “He won considerable fame as an author by the publication of a book in 1847 (actually 1846) entitled Typee. … This was his best work, although he has since written a number of other stories, which were published more for private than public circulation. … During the ten years subsequent to the publication of this book he was employed at the NY Custom House.” – NY Daily Tribune, September 29, 1891 “Of late years Mr. Melville – probably because he had ceased his literary activity – has fallen into a literary decline, as a result of which his books are little known. Probably, if the truth were known, even his own generation has long thought him dead, so quiet have been the later years of his life.” – The Press, September 29, 1891 Soon after his death, there was a short revival of interest in Melville’s work. Many of his works were published again and so were many appreciative scholarly evaluations. A second Melville revival took place about 1919 coinciding with the centennial of Melville’s birth. Still unpublished was Melville’s last work (Billy Budd, 1924) considered by many to be as important as Moby Dick. By 1930s Melville scholarship became prominent (Hugh Hetherington completed the first doctoral dissertation on Melville at the Univ. of Michigan in 1933), and, soon after the second world war, a Melville society was organized. Through the next two decades Melville and his writing attracted more research and scholarship than any other American author. Moby Dick was first published in 1851 and Billy Budd was first published in 1924.