Herman Melville facts
While investigating facts about Herman Melville Books and Herman Melville Novels, I found out little known, but curios details like:
The musician Moby's great great great uncle, Herman Melville, wrote Moby Dick.
how did herman melville die?
Herman Melville's bestselling adventure book career was so destroyed by the colossal failure of Moby Dick that he died broke; all of his works having been long out of print. They would remain so for the next 30 years.
What is herman melville best known for?
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering herman melville's first book. Here are 33 of the best facts about Herman Melville Biography and Herman Melville Bartleby The Scrivener I managed to collect.
what did herman melville write?
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Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" was inspired by a real life aggressive sperm whale called Mocha Dick, a 70-foot long white whale covered in barnacles that possibly survived 100 skirmishes with whalers
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Herman Melville's most famous book Moby-Dick was published in 1851. It was based on Herman's experiences aboard whaling ships and a story about whalers on the ship the Essex that sank in 1920 after being attacked by a sperm whale.
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When Moby-Dick was published it was not received well by readers or critics. It sold only 500 copies in the United Kingdom when it was published. It was nearly 100 years before it became popular and critically acclaimed.
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Moby Dick was so poorly received and reviewed it nearly bankrupted Herman Melville and sent him into a spiraling depression.
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In 2010 a new species of giant sperm whale was named after him, Livyatan melvillei.
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Herman Melville wrote short stories, including Bartleby, the Scrivener (1853), Cock-A-Doodle-Doo (1853), The Enchantadas (1854), Poor Man's Pudding (1854), The Happy Failure (1854), The Lightning-Rod Man (1854), The Fiddler (1854), and many more.
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The publisher of Moby Dick wanted Herman Melville to get rid of the whale, because they thought it wouldn't be popular among young readers. Instead he suggested, "Could not the Captain be struggling with a depravity towards young, perhaps voluptuous maidens?"
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Herman Melville's book "Moby Dick" sold fewer than 4,000 copies before he died, earning him less than $1,300.
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Herman's mother added the "e" to the end of Melvill after her husband's death, making the family surname Melville.
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In addition to novels and short stories Herman Melville wrote poetry collections and essays.
Why is herman melville famous?
You can easily fact check it by examining the linked well-known sources.
The animal with the largest teeth in history was the Livyatan melvillei an extinct sperm whale. It had teeth up to 14.3inches(36.2cm) long and its name was inspired by the biblical sea monster the Leviathon and Moby Dick's Author Herman Melville.
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" was so influential that Jules Verne wrote a sequel to it ("An Antarctic Mystery") and Herman Melville and H.P.Lovecraft took a lot of parallels from it for their respective storys "Moby Dick" and "At the mountains of madness". - source
Nathaniel became friends with the author of Moby Dick, Herman Melville.
Herman Melville died on September 28th, 1891 in New York City from a heart attack. He never knew how popular or well-regarded his work became. Herman Melville is considered to be one of America's greatest literary writers and Moby-Dick is considered by many to be a masterpiece.
Star Trek borrowed heavily from Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" in at least two films: E.g., "I'll chase him round the moons of Nibia and round the Antares maelstrom and round perdition's flames before I give him up!" -Khan - source
When was herman melville born?
Herman Melville wrote 11 books including Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846), Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (1847), Mardi: And a Voyage Thither (1849), Redburn: His First Voyage (1849), White Jacket (1850), Moby-Dick (1851), Pierre (1852), Isle of the Cross (1853), Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (1855), The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857), and Billy Budd, Sailor (1924).
How to pronounce herman melville?
Since his death Herman Melville has been honored with Herman Melville Square in New York City, in 1985. It is the intersection of 26th Street and Park Avenue.
Though best known for his novel 'Moby Dick,' Herman Melville published four collections of poetry, including 'Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War: Civil War Poems,' regarded by many critics as a work as ambitious and rich as any of his novels.
His second voyage was aboard the Acushnet in 1841. This ship was a whaling ship. This trip took three years and became the inspiration for his subsequent novel Typee. In Typee Herman and a crewmate were captured by cannibals and it took for months before they escaped onto another ship the Lucy Ann.
Melville's first sea voyage was aboard the St. Lawrence. This voyage was the inspiration for Redburn: His First Voyage, although the book wasn"t written for many years after the trip.
Singer/Musician/Producer Moby was named in honor of his relative Herman Melville, author of Moby-Dick
